'.•■--*U|.;-: 


njlfj. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


^•^SF 


GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 


AN  EXPOSITION  OF  THE  MAIN  DEVELOPMENT 

IN   SOCIOLOGICAL   THEORY   FROM 

SPENCER  TO  RATZENHOFER 


ALBION  W.  SMALL 

PROFESSOR  AND  HEAD  OF  THE  DEPARTMENT  OF  SOCIOLOGY 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY   OF  CHICAGO 


,'o  2>4-D 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 

LONDON 

T.   FISHER  UNWIN,   PATERNOSTER  SQUARE 

1905 

)\m    1907 


Copyright  1905 
By  The  University  or  Chicago 


Entered  at  Stationers    Hall 


5  C  S  4 


SU3 


PREFACE 

Treatises  always  have  their  place,  but  one  may  venture  the 
belief  that,  in  the  present  stage  of  sociological  thought,  there 
is  more  use  for  the  humbler  service  of  a  conspectus.  There  is 
more  in  common  between  the  scattered  forces  of  sociology  than 
can  easily  be  made  to  appear.  Differences  of  emphasis  create 
illusions  of  separateness,  and  even  antagonism,  where  there  is 
only  division  of  labor.  Disagreements  about  details  of  fact  or 
method  cover  up  unities  in  fundamental  conception.  A  dis- 
tinctive social  philosophy  is  already  here,  and  the  sociologists 
accept  it  more  generally  than  most  of  their  number  realize. 
We  need  claim  for  it  no  more  than  that  it  is  a  point  of  view, 
first  about  the  reality  in  question,  and  second  about  ways  of 
inquiring  into  the  reality. 

This  philosophy  has  happily  as  yet  a  very  meager  doctrinal 
content,  as  distinguished  from  its  literature  of  scope  and 
method.  It  is  the  more  free  to  grow  into  a  commanding  scien- 
tific technique.  Whoever  attempts  to  map.the  present  outlook  of 
sociology  will,  of  course,  put  his  own  limitations  on  exhibit ; 
but  even  a  rude  chart  of  present  sociology  will  doubtless  pay 
for  itself  in  helping  others  presently  to  make  a  better  one.  The 
following  outline,  accordingly,  contains  the  skeleton  of  a  lec- 
ture course  occupying  four  hours  a  week  for  an  academic  year, 
and  of  a  program  of  seminar  work  in  sociological  methodology 
continuing  through  three  years.  The  outline  also  represents, 
in  a  general  way,  the  point  of  view  occupied  by  my  colleagues 
in  the  Department  of  Sociology  in  the  University  of  Chicago. 
Of  course,  they  are  in  no  way  responsible  for  anything  which 
this  syllabus  contains,  and  I  do  not  know  to  what  extent  their 
conclusions  about  details  may  differ  from  those  here  indicated. 

The  course  of  lecture  and  seminar  study  to  which  the  pres- 
ent arnri_i-^jent   is   an   introduction   constitutes  one  of  several 


vi  PREFACE 

lines  of  approach  by  which  graduate  students  are  introduced 
to  research  in  sociolog}'  in  the  University  of  Chicago,  The 
contents  of  this  book  are  just  what  they  purport  to  be  —  the 
actual  working  syllabus  of  the  course.  In  form  it  is  rough, 
fragmentary,  unsymmetrical.  Quite  likely  the  portions  which 
are  worked  out  most  in  detail  will  for  that  reason  seem  to  be 
appraised  by  the  author  above  their  relative  worth.  Both 
intrinsically  and  in  my  own  estimate,  however,  these  parts  of 
the  outline  may  be  quite  subordinate  and  incidental  to  others 
which  the  syllabus  merely  mentions  by  title.  It  is  hoped  that 
the  table  of  contents  will  serve  in  some  measure  to  correct 
apparent  errors  of  perspective  in  the  text.  The  things  said  and 
left  unsaid  in  the  syllabus  are  no  criterion  of  the  relative  values 
assigned  to  the  subjects  so  disproportionately  discussed.  They 
merely  represent  certain  didactic  conveniences.  For  practical 
purposes  certain  things  need  more  than  others  to  be  registered 
in  shape  for  ready  reference.  Other  things  which  are  perhaps 
more  important  may  then  be  attended  to  with  better  results. 

The  main  objects  of  this  syllabus  are,  first,  to  make  visible 
different  elements  that  must  necessarily  find  their  place  in 
ultimate  sociological  theory;  and,  second,  to  serve  as  an  index 
to  relations  between  the  parts  and  the  whole  of  sociological 
science. 

Innumerable  sociologists  have  asserted,  and  are  still  assert- 
ing, not  merely  that  the  portion  of  knowledge,  or  the  "  base  of 
knowledge,  about  which  they  are  primarily  interested  is  a 
part  of  sociology,  but  that  it,  and  it  alone,  is  sociology.  These 
conflicting  prophets  tend  either  to  divide  their  disciples  into 
narrow  and  intolerant  sects,  or  to  confuse  all  who  attempt  to 
reconcile  apparent  contradictions  in  their  doctrines.  The  aim 
of  this  syllabus  is  not  to  exploit  another  of  these  competing 
systems  of  sociology,  but  to  bring  into  view  the  field  of  knowl- 
edge which  all  sociologists  have  instinctively  attempted  to  sur- 
vey. The  aim  is,  further,  to  show  how  the  different  attempts 
to  gain  knowledge  of  this  field  actually  supplement  and  rein- 
force each  other.    They  have  not  been  systematic  or  intentional 


PREFACE  vii 

divisions  of  labor.  They  have  rather  been  unorganized  and 
wasteful.  Nevertheless,  enough  work  has  been  done  to  demon- 
strate an  essential  reason  for  all  the  seemingly  unrelated  effort. 
There  is  knowledge  to  be  gained.  Many  men  have  been  in 
quest  of  it  from  many  points  of  approach.  The  result  is 
increasing  definiteness  of  perception  as  to  the  precise  knowl- 
edge needed,  and  clearer  recognition  of  the  reciprocal  depend- 
ence of  the  different  plans  for  gaining  the  knowledge.^ 

In  a  word,  whether  we  will  or  no,  men's  thoughts  are  pass- 
ing under  the  control  of  a  distinctly  new  conception  of  human 
life  —  its  facts,  its  meanings,  its  moral  implications,  and  the 
resources  for  realizing  the  purposes  given  in  this  latest  world- 
interpretation.  Psychology  and  sociology  are  the  most  impor- 
tant media  through  which  this  new  thought  is  finding  expres- 
sion. It  is  not  worth  while  to  attempt  at  this  point  to  say  how 
function  and  merit  are  divided  between  them.  Enough  that 
psychology  and  sociology,  both  immature,  are  together  formu- 
lating a  "  world-consciousness "  in  a  way  which  must  surely 
set  off  the  epoch  upon  which  we  have  entered  from  all  the 
thought-eras  that  have  preceded. 

Comparatively  few  men  are  aware  of  this  radical  shifting 
of  view ;  but  because  of  it  there  is  already  going  on,  and  there 
must  continue  to  go  on,  a  general  rethinking  of  all  our  theories, 
from  our  most  concrete  economic  and  political  and  legal  poli- 
cies, to  our  logic  and  our  theologies  and  our  metaphysics. 

In  the  aggregate  the  sociologists  have  already  done  much 
to  answer  the  question  :  What,  and  how,  and  to  what  purpose, 
is  association  of  human  beings  with  each  other  ?  This  syllabus 
attempts  not  merely  to  report  these  results,  but  to  correlate 
them  in  a  constructive  way.  It  is  an  attempt  both  to  give  the 
hyman  a  general  idea  of  the  ground  covered  by  sociological 
theory,  and  to  orient  the  student  who  wishes  to  prepare  him- 
self for  independent  sociological  research. 

For  both  of  these  reasons  the  syllabus  is  deliberately  not  a 

*  Cf.  "  A  Decade  of  Sociology,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  XI, 
p.  I. 


viii  PREFACE 

bibliography.  It  is  easy  to  bewilder  and  discourage  both  lay- 
men and  young  specialists  by  revealing  the  already  unwieldy 
mass  of  sociological  literature.  If  this  is  to  be  ventured  at  all, 
it  should  be  by  degrees,  in  connection  with  special  divisions  of 
the  subject.  In  this  discussion  references  to  the  literature  have 
been  limited  strictly  by  the  immediate  demands  of  the  argu- 
ment. 

One  further  purpose  of  the  syllabus  may  be  distinctly 
avowed.  It  is  a  frank  address  to  the  whole  fellowship  of 
scholars  throughout  the  social  sciences.  It  is  an  argument  to 
the  effect  that  knowledge  of  any  portion  or  aspect  of  human 
experience  is  deceptive,  if  it  is  not  correlated  with  knowledge  of 
all  the  other  phases  of  experience  that  help  to  make  the  whole- 
ness of  life,  and  if  it  is  not  set  in  its  proportional  place  in 
a  scale  of  knowledge  reaching  from  the  minutest  detail  of 
individual  experience  to  the  most  inclusive  world-philosophy. 
A  sociology  is  abortive,  if  it  is  not  a  higher  correlation  and 
generalization  of  all  the  kinds  of  knowledge  about  men  which 
are  derived  from  more  intensive  observation  of  abstracted 
phases  of  life.  The  special  social  sciences  are  mere  dissections 
of  dead  tissue,  if  they  do  not  relate  themselves  at  last  to  a 
common  sociology.  Our  task,  then,  is  to  show  how  far  the 
sociologists  have  gone  toward  establishing  a  point  of  view  that 
will  reveal  the  actual  world  in  which  real  men  have  their  life- 
problems. 

The  explanatory  clause  in  the  title  should  account  for  the 
nature  of  the  references,  in  the  following  pages,  to  other  socio- 
logical writers.  As  the  book  does  not  profess  to  contain  a 
system  of  sociology,  but  merely  an  argument  to  indicate  the 
line  of  action  which  may  ultimately  work  nut  a  credible  sys- 
tem ;  so  it  equally  disclaims  the  intention  of  proposing  even  an 
outline  of  a  history  of  sociology.  The  two  chapters  entitled 
"The  History  of  Sociology"  merely  sketch  a  few  historical 
factors  which  have  peculiarly  intimate  connections  with  the 
main  line  of  development  that  the  Ix^dy  of  the  argument 
attempts  to  explain.  If  the  proper  task  of  an  historian  had  been 


.  PREFACE  ix 

undertaken,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  place  the  work  of 
every  writer  mentioned,  and  of  many  not  named,  in  a  per- 
spective quite  different  from  that  in  which  it  appears,  or  fails 
to  appear,  in  this  syllabus.  Much  work  of  first-rate  impor- 
tance for  general  sociology  can  nevertheless  not  be  used  to 
advantage  in  a  rapid  survey  of  the  trunk  line  of  development 
in  recent  sociological  theory.  Our  thesis  is  that  the  central 
line  in  the  path  of  methodological  progress,  from  Spencer  to 
Ratzcnhofcr,  is  marked  by  gradual  shifting  of  effort  from 
analogical  representation  of  social  structures  to  real  analysis 
of  social  processes.  I  have  not  even  presumed  to  pronounce 
upon  the  relative  claims  of  different  scholars  to  credit  for  this 
change ;  still  less  to  compare  the  importance  of  work  directly 
upon  this  primary  method  with  that  of  men  who  have  been 
engaged  upon  more  special  inquiries.  My  attempt  has  been 
simply  to  expound  the  change  itself,  and  its  bearing  upon  cer- 
tain prime  factors  in  sociological  problems.  With  this  pur- 
pose in  view,  I  have  made  use  of  material  most  directly  in 
point.  An  adequate  history  of  sociology  may  recognize  intrin- 
sically superior  merit  in  a  large  amount  of  work  not  brought 
into  focus  from  the  present  center  of  attention. 

Forestudies  for  considerable  portions  of  this  syllabus  have 
appeared  from  time  to  time  since*  1900  in  the  American  Journal 
of  Sociology.  The  substance  of  Part  VIII  was  printed,  under 
the  title  The  Significance  of  Sociology  for  Ethics,  in  the 
"  Decennial  Publications  of  the  University  of  Chicago,"  Vol. 
IV,  and  also  as  a  separate  monograph. 

June  i,  1905. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PART   I.    INTRODUCTION 

Chapter      I.  The  Subject-Matter   of   Sociology    . 

Chapter    II.  Definitions  of  Sociology  . 

Chapter  III.  The  Impulse  of  Sociology 

Chapter  IV.  The  History  of  Sociology 

Chapter    V.  The  History  of  Sociology  (continued) 

Chapter  VI.  The  Problems  of  Sociology 


PAGE 
3 
23 
36 
40 
63 
98 


PART  II.    SOCIETY  CONSIDERED  AS  A  WHOLE   COMPOSED 
OF  DEFINITELY  ARRANGED  PARTS  (STRUCTURE) 

(An  Interpretation  of  Herbert  Spencer) 

Chapter  VII.  The  Place  of  Spencer  in  Sociology  .  .  .  109 
Chapter  VIII.  Spencer's  Analysis  of  Society  .  .  .  .  115 
Chapter      IX.   The  Value  of  Spencer's  Method   ....         130 

PART  III.     SOCIETY  CONSIDERED  AS  A  WHOLE  COMPOSED 

OF   PARTS   WORKING   TOGETHER   TO   ACHIEVE 

RESULTS    (FUNCTION) 

(An  Interpretation  of  SchdMe) 

Chapter  X.  A  Conspectus  of  Schaffle's  Scheme  ....  157 
Chapter  XI.   The  Value  of  Schaffle's  Method       ....        167 


PART  IV.    SOCIETY  CONSIDERED  AS  A  PROCESS  OF  ADJUST- 
MENT BY  CONFLICT  BETWEEN  ASSOCIATED 
INDIVIDUALS 


Chapter 

XII 

Chapter 

xni 

Chapter 

XIV 

Chapter 

XV 

Chapter 

XVI 

Chapter 

XVII 

Chapter  XVIII. 

Chapter 

XIX 

(An  Interpretation  of  Ratsenhofer) 

The    Problem   Restated 
Ratzenhofer's  Epitome  of  His  Theory 
Elements  of  the  Social  Process  . 
The  Nature  of  the  Social  Process 
The  Primitive  Social   Process 
Stages  of  the  Social  Process 
The  Social  Process  in  Civic  Groups 
The  Latent   Antagonisms   in   States 


183 
189 
196 
201 
207 
213 
224 
242 


CONTENTS 


Chapter        XX.   Types  of  Antagonistic  Interests  in  States   . 

Chapter  XXI.  Types  of  Antagonistic  Interests  in  States  (con- 
tinued)    ........ 

Chapter    XXII.   Typical  Conflicts  of  Interest  in  the  State  . 

Chapter  XXIII.  Typical  Conflicts  of  Interest  in  the  State  (con- 
tinued)    .         .     •   . 


PAGB 

265 
281 


PART  V.    SOCIETY  CONSIDERED  AS  A  PROCESS  OF  ADJUST- 
MENT  BY   CO-OPERATION   BETWEEN   ASSOCIATED 
INDIVIDUALS 

(Further  Interpretation  of  Ratsenhofer) 

Chapter    XXIV.    General    Survey 325 

Chapter      XXV.    The  Content  of  the  Social  Process   .         .         .  344 

Chapter     XXVI.    The  Transition  from  Struggle  to  Co-operation  .  357 
Chapter  XXVII.   The  Actual    Conflict    of    Interests    in    Modern 

Society     .  .  .  .  ,  .  .  .  372 

PART  VI.  CONSPECTUS  OF  CONCEPTS  DERIVED  BY 
ANALYSIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS 


Chapter  XXVIII. 

Chapter  XXIX. 

Chapter  XXX. 

Chapter  XXXI. 

Chapter  XXXII. 

Chapter  XXXIII. 


Chapter    XXXIV. 
Chapter      XXXV. 


Chapter    XXXVI. 
Chapter  XXXVII. 


Relation  of  Part  VI  to  the  Whole  Argument  . 

Schedule  of  Sociological  Concepts  . 

The  Conditions  of  Society;  the  Elements  of 
Society;  Society;  the  Physical  Environment 

Interests  ....... 

The    Individual        ...... 

The  Spiritual  Environment ;  Contacts  ;  Differ- 
entiation ;  Group ;  Form  of  the  Group ; 
Conflict;     Social    Situations 

Association ;   the  Social ;    the  Social  Process  . 

Social  Structure ;  Social  Functions ;  Social 
Forces;  Social  Ends;  Subjective  Environ- 
ment ;  Social  Consciousness ;  the  Socio- 
logical   Point   of   View        .... 

Some  Incidents  of  the  Social  Process   . 

Some  Incidents  of  the  Social  Process  (con- 
tinued)       ....... 


397 
401 

404 
425 
443 


482 
501 


524 
559 

589 


PART    VII.     THE    SOCIAL    PROCESS    CONSIDERED    AS    A 
SYSTEM  OF  PSYCHICAL  PROBLEMS 

Chapter  XXXVIII.    The  Relation    of    Part    VII    to   the    Previous 

Argument  ......        619 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGE 

Chapter      XXXIX.   The  Elements  of  Social  Causation       .        .  626 

Chapter  XL.   The  Initial  Problems  of  Social  Psychology  .  640 

PART   VIII.     THE    SOCIAL    PROCESS    CONSIDERED    AS  A 
SYSTEM  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS 

Chapter  XLI.    Current  Confusion  of  Moral  Standards  .         .  653 

Chapter        XLI  I.    The  Unknown  Quantity  in  Moral  Problems     .  662 

Chapter  XLIII.  The  Logical  Form  of  Moral  Judgments  .  .  666 
Chapter      XLIV.   The  Relation  of  the  Process-Conception  of  Life 

to   Moral   Judgments    .....  674 

Chapter        XLV.    The  Sociological  Content  of  Moral  Judgments  .  678 

Chapter      XLVI.    Working  Tests  of  Ethical  Valuations       .         .  686 

Chapter  XLVII.  Sociological  Prerequisites  for  Ethical  Valuation  690 
Chapter  XLVIII.    Categorical  and  Telic  Valuations  Contrasted  in 

the  Case  of  Temperance       ....  697 

PART    IX.     THE    SOCIAL    PROCESS    CONSIDERED    AS  A 
SYSTEM  OF  TECHNICAL  PROBLEMS 

Chapter   XLIX.    The  Premises  of  Practical  Sociology  .         .         .  705 

Chapter  L.    Social  Achievement  in  the  United  States  .         .  718 

Chapter         LI.   Conclusion 728 


PART   I 

INTRODUCTION 


CHAPIER    I 
THE  SUBJECT-MATTER  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

The  proposition  to  be  developed  in  this  chapter,  and  then 
in  greater  detail  throughout  the  syllabus,  is  that  the  subject- 
matter  of  sociology  is  the  process  of  human  association} 

Ever  since  Comte  proposed  the  name  "  sociology,"  and 
parallel  with  all  subsequent  attempts  to  give  the  term  a  definite 
content,  one  mode  of  attack  upon  the  proposed  science  has  been 
denial  that  it  could  have  a  subject-matter  not  already  pre- 
empted by  other  sciences.  This  sort  of  attack  has  been 
encouraged  by  the  seemingly  hopeless  disagreement  among 
sociologists  about  the  scientific  task  that  they  were  trying  to 
perform.  If  sociology  has  had  anything  to  say  about  primitive 
peoples,  for  instance,  it  has  been  accused  of  violating  the  terri- 
tory of  anthropology  and  ethnology.  If  it  has  dealt  with  evi- 
dence recorded  by  civilized  races,  it  has  been  charged  with 
invading  the  province  of  the  historian.  If  it  has  touched  upon 
the  relations  of  social  classes  in  modern  times,  the  political 
scientist  or  the  economist  has  warned  it  to  cease  infringing 
upon  his  monopoly.  Thus  sociology  has  seemed  to  workers  in 
other  sciences  either  a  pseudo-science,  attempting  to  get  pres- 
tige in  their  own  fields  by  exploiting  quack  methods,  or  a 

'  The  idea  of  human  association  as  a  process  has  been  familiar  to 
philosophers  since  Hegel,  but  hardly  in  a  realistic  sense.  From  abstract 
dialectics  to  socialistic  agitation,  the  idea  has  had  a  certain  vogue  and  influ- 
ence. It  would  not  be  difificult  to  show  that  all  the  sociologists  since  Comte 
have  more  or  less  consciously  assumed  this  concept  as  their  major  premise. 
So  far  as  I  am  aware,  the  theorem  of  this  chapter  was  first  formulated  by 
Professor  E.  C.  Hayes,  in  a  monograph  written  in  1902,  and  published,  under 
the  title  "  Sociological  Construction  Lines,"  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  Vol.  X,  pp.  603  and  750.  Professor  Ross  had  virtually  assumed  the 
above  formula,  though  he  did  not  directly  declare  it,  in  the  American  Journal 
of  Sociology,  Vol.  IX,  pp.  201  ff.  (cf.  Foundations  of  Sociology,  p.  91), 
and  his  projected  book  on  social  processes  will  go  far  toward  promoting  the 
theorem  from  the  rank  of  a  neologism  to  that  of  a  commonplace. 


4  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

mere  collector  of  the  waste  thrown  aside  by  the  more  important 
sciences.  Sociologists  themselves  have  unintentionally  done 
not  a  little  to  confirm  this  impression.  As  has  been  hinted 
above,  their  failure  to  agree  upon  a  definition  of  their  science, 
or  upon  precise  description  of  their  task,  has  seemed  to  afford 
ocular  proof  that  their  alleged  science  was  merely  a  name  with 
no  corresponding  content.^ 

Has  sociology  a  material  of  its  own  ?  Jealous  friends  of  the 
older  sciences  promptly  answer  **  No."  Friends  of  the  new 
science  as  confidently  answer  "  Yes; "  but  they  have  not  always 
been  able  to  justify  the  answer  to  each  other,  or  even  to 
themselves. 

The  formula  adopted  above  is  not  an  individual  variation 
of  the  many  alternatives  already  proposed  as  a  fair  field  for  a 
science  of  sociology.  It  is  rather  an  interpretation  of  all  the 
efforts,  both  within  and  without  the  older  sciences,  which  have 
been  prompted  by  a  more  or  less  distinct  feeling  that  there  are 
important  reaches  of  knowledge  about  human  conditions  not 
provided  for  in  the  programs  of  the  older  sciences.  Instead  of 
leading  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  nothing  to  do  which  the 
older  sciences  do  not  properly  attempt,  if  the  heterogeneous 
labors  of  the  sociologists  are  reviewed  with  a  little  care  they 
furnish  abundant  evidence,  both  that  there  is  unoccupied  terri- 
tory, and  that  these  unsystematized  surveys  have  each  actually 
been  doing  some  of  the  necessary  work  of  plotting  the  ground. 

The  proposition  which  we  are  now  supporting  is  not  that 
the  sociologists  ought  to  fix  upon  a  new  material  as  the  subject- 
matter  of  their  science.  In  fact,  the  sociologists  have  long  ago 
instinctively  fix^d  upon  their  material,  and  its  peculiar  char- 
acter is  gradually  beginning  to  appear.     The  subject-matter 

'  The  most  recent  betrayal  of  this  judgment  may  be  seen  in  a  discussion  of 
two  papers  by  Mr.  Victor  Branford  and  Professor  Durkheim  on  "  The  Relation 
of  Sociology  to  the  Social  Sciences  and  to  Philosophy  "  (vide  American  Journal 
of  Sociology,  Vol.  X,  pp.  134  ff.  and  256  ff.)  -  The  differences  of  opinion  and 
vagueness  of  view  betrayed  in  the  discussion  fairly  reflect  the  prevailing  state 
of  mind  as  to  the  subject-matter  of  sociology,  even  among  persons  who  have 
given  more  than  casual  attention  to  recent  sociological  literature. 


THE   SUBJECT-MATTER  OF  SOCIOLOGY  S 

upon  which  the  sociologists  are  engaged  is  the  social  process  as 
a  whole.  This  is  to  be  sharply  distinguished,  on  the  one  hand, 
from  mere  knowledge  of  isolated  phenomena,  or  classes  of 
phenomena,  that  take  place  among  men;  and  it  is  also  to  be 
distinguished  from  mere  knowledge  of  immediate  relations 
that  may  be  abstracted  from  the  whole  complex  of  relations 
which  make  up  the  entire  fabric  of  human  life.  The  former 
kind  of  knowledge  is  description,  narrative,  story,  tradition, 
that  does  not  rise  to  the  generality  of  science.  The  latter  kind 
of  knowledge  may  be  organized  into  science  of  a  certain  order 
of  generality.  This  has  occurred,  schematically  at  least,  in  the 
case  of  the  accepted  social  sciences  —  ethnology,  history,  eco- 
nomics, etc.  The  sociologists  are  attempting  to  develop  a  gen- 
eral science  which  will  have  relations  to  the  special  social 
sciences  analogous  with  the  relations  of  general  physics  to  the 
special  physical  sciences,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  various 
physical  technologies,  on  the  other ;  or  analogous  with  the  rela- 
tions of  general  chemistry  to  subdivisions  of  chemistry,  or  the 
relations  of  general  biology  to  subordinate  sections  of  biology. 
Comparisons  of  this  sort  are  so  loose  that  they  might  easily 
prejudice  the  case  under  discussion.  They  are  merely  illustra- 
tions, necessarily  inexact,  but  presenting  certain  instructive 
parallels.  Let  us  suppose  that,  at  a  certain  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  science  of  physics,  investigators  had  acquired  con- 
siderable amounts  of  knowledge  alx>ut  groups  of  physical  phe- 
nomena determined  by  relaitively  superficial  marks.  Let  us 
suppose  that  one  type  of  physicists  had  specialized  upon  gravi- 
tation, with  the  least  possible  attention  to  all  other  phases  of 
physical  phenomena.  Suppose  another  type  had  in  the  same 
way  confined  attention  to  the  phenomena  of  light ;  another,  to 
those  of  magnetism ;  etc.  Suppose  that  in  each  case  the  knowl- 
edge gained  by  such  abstraction  had  been  carefully  system- 
atized. This  whole  body  of  knowledge  would  doubtless  have 
had  a  certain  value.  Obviously  that  value  would  have  been 
narrowly  limited,  however,  because  such  arbitrary  isolation  of 
things  that  are  essentially  related  is  possible  only  so  long  as 


6  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

insight  into  the  real  facts  is  rudimentary.  Modern  physics 
could  not  come  into  existence  until,  by  some  means  or  other, 
students  of  these  things  had  learned  to  entertain  the  idea  of 
the  unity  of  their  phenomena,  resting  in  an  underlying  unity 
of  substance  manifesting  the  phenomena.  That  is,  there  could 
be  only  superficial  arrangements  of  amateurish  observation,  not 
respectable  science,  until  a  unifying  conception  gave  coherence 
to  the  details  observed.  Thus  the  conception  of  matter,  and 
of  the  molar  and  molecular  processes  of  matter,  might  have 
arisen  after  a  long  history  of  such  unconcerted  specialization 
as  we  have  supposed.  These  conceptions  would  presently 
serve  as  bonds  of  connection  between  the  scattered  workers. 
They  would  serve  as  clues  to  common  interests  between  them. 
They  would  lead  to  meanings  previously  undiscovered  in  the 
phenomena,  and  they  would  promote  further  investigation  of 
the  phenomena.  Thus,  in  place  of  desultory  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge about  interesting  physical  facts,  there  would  arise  a 
science  of  physics.  Although  the  actual  development  of  physics 
has  not  literally  followed  this  order,  the  essential  development 
has  involved  virtually  the  above  stages.  Consciousness  of  a 
subject-matter,  on  the  one  hand  manifesting  diverse  phe- 
nomena, and  on  the  other  hand  strictly  delimited  from  other 
subject-matter,  has  been  a  precondition  of  a  science  of  physics 
at  once  comprehensive  and  independent. 

We  may  vary  the  form  of  the  illustration  in  the  case  of 
chemistry.  Suppose  something  like  our  present  knowledge  of 
chemical  occurrences  had  grown  up  before  there  was  any  such 
generalization  as  "matter"  or  "atomic  ])hcnomcna."  Suppose 
some  men  had  by  some  sort  of  intuition  grouped  the  metals 
together,  and  had  observed  their  behavior  under  different  cir- 
cumstances. Suppose  others  had  studied  salts,  others  acids, 
etc.  Again  we  should  have  had  a  certain  grade  of  knowledge, 
in  a  certain  system  of  arrangement;  but  we  should  have  had  no 
science  of  chemistry.  There  must  first  have  arisen  a  conception 
of  an  order  of  phenomena  common  to  all  matter,  and  conform- 
ing to  laws  varying  merely  in  details  according  to  the  com- 


THE   SUBJECT-MATTER   OF   SOCIOLOGY  7 

position  and  circumstances  of  the  particular  portions  of  matter 
in  question.  Otherwise  more  or  less  interesting  information 
about  capriciously  distinguished  sorts  of  matter  could  never 
attain  the  dignity  of  a  science  of  chemistry. 

The  like  is  true  of  biology,  and  the  literal  history  of  biology 
has  perhaps  more  obviously  conformed  to  the  logical  necessity 
we  are  citing  than  the  history  of  physics  or  chemistry.  The 
"natural  history"  still  found  in  many  schools  harks  back  to 
conceptions  of  the  organic  world  which  are  logically  neither 
more  nor  less  respectable  than  the  traditional  English  farmer's 
division  of  the  animal  kingdom  into  "game,  vermin,  and 
stock."  No  matter  how  patiently  one  type  of  men  studies 
plants,  and  another  reptiles,  and  another  fishes,  and  another 
birds,  and  another  beasts,  and  so  on,  neither  one  nor  all  of  them 
could  go  much  beyond  advertising  the  need  of  a  biological 
science  which  did  not  exist.  In  order  that  dilettantish  natural 
history  might  pass  over  into  positive  biology,  it  was  necessary 
that  all  observation  of  living  nature  should  submit  to  control 
by  an  antecedent  conception  of  organic  matter  and  laws  of  the 
variation  of  its  phenomena. 

In  a  word,  whatever  the  chronological  order  of  occurrence 
of  the  ideas,  all  the  concrete  and  special  knowledge  that  goes 
to  make  up  our  present  sciences  has  been  unified  at  last  around 
some  central  conception  of  subject-matter  and  appropriate 
method.  We  may  express  the  fact  for  our  present  purposes  in 
the  formula :  Physics  is  the  science  of  matter  in  its  molar  and 
molecular  processes ;  chemistry  is  the  science  of  matter  in  its 
atomic  processes ;  biology  is  the  science  of  matter  in  its  organic 
processes.  In  each  case  the  comprehensive  science  has  the  task 
of  organizing  details  which  may  already  have  been  studied 
separately  by  several  varieties  of  scholars. 

The  same  logical  methods  which  have  arrived  at  these 
generalizations  make  irresistibly  toward  the  conviction  that 
coherence  and  unity  of  knowledge  about  human  experience 
demand  a  science  of  men  in  their  associational  processes. 
Many  of  these  processes  have  long  been  studied  in  detail,  but 


8  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

Study  of  them  in  their  correlations  is,  as  in  the  case  of  chemi- 
cal and  vital  processes,  the  work  of  a  distinct  order  of  science, 
with  a  peculiar  object  of  attention.  To  the  range  of  general- 
ization which  the  needed  general  science  comprehends  in  the 
present  case,  the  men  who  have  most  felt  the  need  apply  the 
name  sociology. 

Without  referring  to  details  which  might  further  guard 
this  summary  comparison,  our  present  interest  is  in  the  fact  to 
be  illustrated  in  the  case  of  sociology.  The  phenomena  pre- 
sented by  human  beings  have  been  studied  in  ways  which  are 
on  the  same  logical  plane  with  the  treatment  of  organic  phe- 
nomena by  the  obsolete  types  of  "natural  history."  Not  to 
mention  the  lesser  social  sciences,  conventional  history  and 
economics  and  ethics,  as  represented  by  still  extant  types  of 
thinkers,  are  sometimes  as  fragmentary  and  unvital  and  uncen- 
tered  as  a  "  science  "  of  garden  vegetables  or  of  draft-horses 
would  be,  if  not  correlated  with  larger  knowledge.  The 
sociologists  represent  a  protest  against  this  situation.  The  pro- 
test has  been  long  in  developing  out  of  the  spontaneous,  inar- 
ticulate stage.  It  is  rapidly  finding  its  voice.  The  formula 
which  we  are  emphasizing  expresses  the  implicit  assumption  of 
all  the  sociologists  who  are  to  be  taken  seriously.  If  they 
could,  they  would  materially  weaken  the  force  of  the  names 
used  to  designate  the  conventional  divisions  of  sciences  pertain- 
ing to  man.  The  past  and  present  convenience  of  these  names, 
and  of  the  academic  classifications  for  which  they  stand,  is 
counterbalanced  by  the  obstructions  which  they  oppose  to  the 
progress  of  real  knowledge.  They  interfere  with  discovery 
that  all  serious  students  of  society  are  investigating  phases  of 
the  same  subject-matter.  Tlie  supreme  need  in  the  human 
sciences  at  the  present  moment  is  to  make  out  what  that  one 
subject-matter  is.  and  how  the  different  kinds  of.  research  are 
related  to  it.  This  central  and  comprehensive  reality  appears 
to  the  sociologists  as  the  associational  process. 

Wherever  there  are  liuman  beings  there  arc  phenomena  of 
association.     Those  phenomena  constitute  a  process  composed 


THE   SUBJECT-MATTER   OF   SOCIOLOGY  9 

of  processes.  There  can  be  no  convincing  science  of  human 
life  till  these  processes  are  known,  from  least  to  greatest,  in  the 
relation  of  each  to  each  and  to  all.  Knowledge  of  human  life 
which  stops  short  of  this  is  at  best  a  fragment,  and  at  worst  a 
fiction.  Hence  we  assert  that  studies  of  selected  phases  of 
human  affairs,  no  matter  how  ancient  and  awful  the  tradition 
that  sponsors  them,  are  logically  in  the  class  of  pseudo-sciences, 
until  they  take  their  place  within  the  plexus  of  sciences  which 
together  interpret  the  whole  process  of  human  association. 

Men  who  call  themselves  by  either  of  the  names  that  signify 
attachment  to  either  of  the  traditional  divisions  of  knowledge 
are  at  liberty  to  define  their  intellectual  interests  for  themselves, 
and  to  shape  their  individual  pursuits  accordingly.  Thus  cer- 
tain interests  may  posit  a  *'  science  "  of  archaeology ;  others,  a 
"science"  of  epigraphy;  others,  a  "science"  of  cartography; 
others,  a  "science"  of  numismatology;  and  so  on,  up  to  his- 
tory, and  law,  and  economics,  and  cosmic  philosophy.  Men  of 
each  type  may  cultivate  their  peculiar  section  of  knowledge 
as  though  it  outranked  every  other  kind  of  knowledge.  Not 
group-provincialisms,  however,  but  the  reality  of  objective 
relations,  must  determine  at  last  whether  a  selected  portion  of 
knowledge  is  relatively  a  fragment  or  a  whole,  relatively  insig- 
nificant or  important.  No  incident,  phase,  machinery,  institu- 
tion, product,  stage,  or  program  of  human  life  is  central  enough 
to  clothe  knowledge  of  it  with  more  than  the  rank  of  a  tributary 
science.  The  process  that  is  taking  place  among  men,  through 
the  ages  and  across  the  ages,  is  the  largest  whole  of  which  men 
can  have  positive  knowledge.  This  whole  consequently  fixes 
the  goal  of  complete  science  of  human  life.  No  less  than  this 
whole  is  contemplated  by  the  sociologist  as  his  aim.  He  neces- 
sarily represents  a  desired  generalization  of  knowledge  which 
is  farther  than  any  other  scientific  program  from  actual  or 
probable  completion.  Sociology  thus  defined  is,  and  must 
remain,  more  a  determining  point  of  view  than  a  finished  body 
of  knowledge.  At  the  same  time,  and  by  virtue  of  both  these 
sides  of  its  case,  sociology  exposes  the  relativity  and  the  par- 


10  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

tialness  of  any  body  of  knowledge  which  comprehends  less  than 
the  full  sweep  of  the  social  process.  Whatever  be  the  appraisal 
of  the  fractional  sciences  in  the  subjective  estimate  of  their  pro- 
moters, the  objective  importance  of  each  of  them  is  measured 
by  the  kind  and  amount  of  tribute  it  can  bring  to  knowledge  of 
the  human  process  as  a  whole. 

These  conceptions  have  been  expressed  in  such  general 
terms  that  repetition  in  less  abstract  form  may  not  be  super- 
fluous. Wherever  two  or  more  human  beings  are  within  each 
other's  ken,  there  is  set  up  between  them  action  and  reaction, 
exchange  of  influence  of  some  sort  or  other.  That  influence, 
on  the  one  hand,  molds  the  individuals  concerned,  tending  to 
make,  unmake,  remake  them  without  end ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  composes  those  individuals  into  more  or  less  rigid 
group-relationships,  perhaps  after  having  decomposed  previous 
relationships  to  another  group.  This  reciprocating  process, 
growing  infinitely  complex  as  the  circle  of  association  widens, 
and  as  the  type  of  individual  becomes  more  and  more  evolved 
—  including,  besides  its  form,  the  content  of  the  process,  first 
in  the  evolving  objective  conditions  within  which  the  associa- 
tion takes  place,  second  in  the  developing  consciousness  of  the 
persons  engaged  in  the  process  —  this  is  the  human  reality,  and 
all  knowledge  of  human  conditions  is  abortive  in  the  degree  in 
which  it  fails  to  fill  out  a  complete  expression  of  this  reality. 

Let  us  suppose  the  savage  man  A,  and  the  savage  woman 
B,  of  the  horde  X.  Their  wants  are  few.  Food  is  plenty.  B 
supplies  it  for  A,  who  eats  till  he  is  satisfied,  and  treats  his 
food-getter  with  tolerable  gentleness.  But  the  food  grows 
scarce.  The  horde  breaks  up  into  foraging  pairs.  A  and  B 
wander  beyond  their  usual  haunts,  and  encounter  the  savage 
man  C  of  horde  Y.  They  had  never  met  before.  To  an 
impartial  observer  there  is  little  to  distinguish  the  savage  A 
from  the  savage  C.  Up  to  date  all  the  ferocity  which  we  asso- 
ciate with  the  word  "savage"  may  have  been  dormant  in 
both.  In  each  other's  presence  new  factors  of  stimulation  and 
response  begin  to  operate.    Each  wants  food.    Each  wants  the 


THE   SUBJECT-MATTER   OF   SOCIOLOGY  ii 

woman.  Each  wants  to  eliminate  the  other.  Treating  the 
woman  as  merely  a  passive  factor,  we  have  in  action  rudiments 
of  the  universal  process  of  association,  viz.,  antithesis  of  indi- 
viduals, stimulus  of  one  by  the  other,  through  the  medium  of 
common  or  conflicting  wants,  self-assertion  by  the  opposing 
individuals,  resulting  reconstruction  of  the  individuals  them- 
selves. That  is,  they  fight;  one  prevails,  and  is  transformed 
from  a  socially  indifferent  personality  into  a  master;  the  other 
yields,  and  is  transformed  from  a  socially  indifferent  person- 
ality into  a  slave.  The  group  is  changed  from  a  diad  into  a 
triad.  Both  A  and  B,  we  may  suppose,  become  subject  to  C, 
wtiile  the  relation  of  neither  A  nor  B  to  C  is  precisely  identical 
with  the  previous  relation  of  A  and  B  to  each  other. 

This  process  of  individual  and  group-reaction,  remaking 
both  the  individuals  and  the  groups,  extends  from  the  savage 
group  of  two  or  more,  to  the  most  comprehensive  and  complex 
group  of  groups  which  ultimate  civilization  may  develop.  It  is 
incessant.  It  is  perpetually  varying.  It  is  the  main  movement, 
within  which  migrations,  race-mixtures,  wars,  governments, 
constitutions,  revolutions,  reformations,  federations,  civiliza- 
tions, are  merely  the  more  or  less  important  episodes,  or  situa- 
tions, or  factors.  This  whole  process  is  the  supreme  fact 
within  the  reach  of  human  knowledge.  It  is  the  final  inter- 
preter of  each  and  every  lesser  fact  which  may  attract  human 
attention.  Since  this  process,  from  beginning  to  end,  from 
component  to  completeness,  in  its  forms  and  in  its  forces,  in  its 
origins,  its  variations,  and  its  tendencies,  is  the  subject-matter 
which  sociology  proposes  to  investigate,  the  relation  of  every 
other  science  to  sociology  is  fixed,  not  by  the  dictum  of  any 
scientist,  but  oy  the  relation  which  the  sulDJect-matter  and  the 
methods  of  other  sciences  bear  to  knowledge  of  the  entire 
social  process. 

To  make  the  point  more  precise,  we  may  distinguish  the 
work  of  sociology  in  turn  from  that  of  ethnology,  of  history, 
and  of  economics.  Before  passing  to  these  specifications,  or 
illustrations,  we  must  provide  for  all  necessary  corrections  of 


12  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

the  personal  equation.  We  will  not  assume,  whether  to  the 
advantage  or  the  disadvantage  of  either  science,  that  any  single 
man,  still  less  a  single  fragment  of  his  work,  fairly  represents 
Ithe  whole  of  his  science.  We  will  not  even  venture  to  assume 
that  our  use  of  the  material  to  be  cited  for  illustration  gives  all 
the  credit  due  to  the  writer  from  whom  it  is  taken.  His  own 
views  of  the  final  correlation  of  that  material  with  other  sub- 
jects of  knowledge  may  be  quite  unobjectionable.  Our  purpose 
is  merely  to  illustrate  the  point  that,  in  the  form  in  which  it 
appears  in  a  given  version  of  one  of  these  sciences,  the  same 
objective  material  may  have  no  interest  whatever  for  sociology, 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  viewed  in  such  relations  as,  at 
one  and  the  same  time,  to  furnish  subject-matter  for  one  of 
these  sciences  and  also  for  sociology.  To  express  the  case 
from  the  point  of  view  of  desirability,  as  I  see  it,  and  of  ulti- 
mate adjustment,  as  I  predict  it,  there  will  presently  be  no 
apparently  statical  dualism  or  multipleism  between  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  other  human  sciences  and  that  of  sociology; 
When  every  student  of  human  life  realizes  that  the  reality 
which  he  tries  to  know  is  a  one,  not  a  many,  each  will  regard 
the  material  of  his  immediate  science,  not  as  belonging  to  his 
science  instead  of  belonging  to  another  science,  but  as  being  to 
some  extent  the  common  material  of  several  sciences,  or  at 
most  as  held  in  trusteeship  by  his  science  for  its  final  use  in  the 
complete  science. 

In  this  spirit  we  may  cite  for  illustration,  first,  the  little 
book,  Deniker's  Tlie  Races  of  MajiJ^  The  author  states  his 
purpose  as  follows:  "My  object  ....  has  been  to  give 
.....  the  essential  facts  of  the  twin  sciences  of  anthropology 
and  ethnography"  (Preface).  In  carrying  out  this  purpose 
a  chapter  is  devoted  to  each  of  the  following  subjects: 
"  Somatic  Characters ;  "  "  Morphological  Characters ;  " 
"Physiological  Characters;"  "Ethnic  Characters;"  "Lin- 
guistic Characters;"  "Sociological  Characters"  (a  chapter 
each  on  "Material  Life,"  "Psychic  Life,"  "  l-'amily  Life,"  and 

'London,  1900. 


THE   SUBJECT-MATTER   OF   SOCIOLOGY  13 

"Social  Life");  ''Classification  of  Races  and  Peoples;" 
"Races  and  Peoples  of  Europe;"  "Races  and  Peoples  of 
Asia;"  "Races  and  Peoples  of  Africa;"  "Races  and  Peoples 
of  Oceania;"  "Races  and  Peoples  of  America." 

Without  f^assing  judgment  upon  the  expressed  or  implied 
correlations  in  which  the  author  views  this  material,  we  may 
repeat  our  abstract  propositions  in  terms  of  the  particulars 
which  he  schedules.  If  there  be  a  science  or  sciences  that  are 
content  to  discover,  describe,  compare,  and  classify  such  details 
as  these,  and  thcreivith  to  let  the  matter  rest,  such  sciences  may 
be  credited  with  a  preserve  of  their  own,  from  which  sociology 
holds  itself  unconcernedly  aloof.  With  these  details,  simply 
as  details,  or  merely  as  foils  reciprocally  to  display  each  other 
as  curiosities,  sociology  has  no  manner  of  concern.  If  the  items 
thus  considered  are  the  subject-matter  of  any  science,  sociology 
is  not  likely  to  disturb  either  its-  possession  or  its  title. 

On  the  other  hand,  every  one  of  these  details  has  occurred 
somewhere  along  in  the  course  of  the  process  in  which  rudi- 
mentary men,  and  rudimentary  human  associations,  evolve  into 
developed  personalities  and  complex  associations.  With  the 
whence,  and  the  how,  and  the  why,  and  the  whither  of  this 
process,  sociology  is  supremely  concerned.  If  any  of  the 
details  in  question  can  be  brought  into  such  visible  relation 
with  this  social  process,  and  in  the  precise  measure  in  which 
they  can  be  made  to  shed  light  upon  the  process,  they  come 
wi-thin  the  scope  of  sociology.  Thus  the  most  spectacular 
detail,  like  a  racial  peculiarity^  or  a  ceremonial  anomaly  which 
remains  unaccounted  for,  may  be  the  chief  pride  and  the  center 
of  attraction  in  an  ethnological  museum.  It  would  have  no 
value  at  all  for  sociology.  If,  however,  it  could  be  made  to 
yield  any  evidence  whatever  about  the  facts,  or  the  forms,  or 
the  forces,  or  the  conditions,  or  the  laws  of  the  social  process, 
to  just  that  extent  it  would  come  to  be  the  common  material  of 
sociology  and  of  the  science  which  exhibits  it  in  the  museum. 

In  the  same  way  we  may  distinguish  between  the  object  of 
attention  in  sociology  and  the  subject-matter  beyond  which  cer- 


14  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

tain  types  of  mind  do  not  pry  in  studying  history.^  Let  us 
refer  to  one  of  the  most  respected  among  English  historians. 
In  his  Constitutional  History  of  England,  Vol.  I,  chap.  9,  "The 
Norman  Conquest,"  Bishop  Stubbs  presents  the  subject  under 
the  following  minor  titles :  "  Complex  Results  of  the  Con- 
quest;" "State  of  Normandy;"  "Growth  of  Feudalism;" 
"  Feudal  Ideas  of  the  Conquest ; "  "  National  Policy  of  Wil- 
liam;" "Introduction  of  Feudal  Usages;"  "Maintenance  of 
Old  Forms ;  "  "  Results  of  Changes  of  Administrators ;  "  "  Sub- 
ordinate Changes :  in  Judicature,  in  Taxation,  in  Ecclesiastical 
Affairs;"  "Transitional  Character  of  the  Period." 

We  are  citing  an  author  who  is  among  the  least  liable  to 
the  charge  of  belonging  to  the  former  of  the  two  types  just 

*  As  I  have  implied  above,  the  point  of  view  which  we  are  explaining 
assumes  that,  when  studies  of  the  social  reality  are  properly  centered,  we  shall 
no  longer  speak  as  though  the  ethnologists  were  studying  one  thing,  the  his- 
torians another,  the  economists  another,  the  sociologists  another,  etc.,  etc.  We 
shall  perceive  that,  if  we  are  using  a  valid  method,  so  far  as  we  are  actually 
contributing  to  real  knowledge,  rather  than  practicing  an  art,  or  indulging  in 
play,  we  are  in  fact  all  studying  the  same  thing.  Our  particular  task  will 
require  primary  attention  to  certain  fragments  or  aspects  of  the  one  thing.  It 
will  always  be  understood,  however,  that  our  results  have  to  be  completed  by 
assimilating,  within  the  entire  report,  the  whole  made  up  by  correlation  of  the 
results  of  all  research.  Accordingly  I  am  trying  to  avoid  a  use  of  language 
which  carries  the  old  implications.  I  do  not  want  to  say  :  "  Ethnology  deals 
with  this  subject-matter,  history  with  that,  economics  with  the  other,  etc." 
I  want  to  say,  rather,  that  certain  material  with  which  historians  concern 
themselves  may  be  treated  by  the  historians  in  such  a  way  that  it  satisfies  no 
general  human  interest,  and  for  that  reason  has  no  value  for  the  sociologist. 
That  same  material  may  be  treated  by  other  historians  in  such  a  way  that,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  it  both  explains  and  is  explained  by  the  whole  social  process. 
If  the  former  occurs,  there  is  no  fellowship  between  such  historians  and  the 
sociologists.  If  the  latter  is  the  case,  the  names  "  historian  "  and  "  sociologist  " 
would  be  appropriate  merely  as  indicating  where  the  two  types  of  scholars 
respectively  place  the  primary  emphasis  in  their  work.  The  historian  would 
be  he  who  puts  most  stress  upon  discovering  the  facts  of  past  situations.  The 
sociologist  would  be  he  who  puts  most  stress  upon  the  correlation  of  these  facts 
with  knowledge  of  the  social  process  in  general.  This  line  of  cleavage  between 
types  of  historians  was  brought  out  very  clearly  in  a  discussion  at  the  joint 
meeting  of  the  American  Economic  Association  and  the  American  Historical 
Association  at  New  Orleans,  December,  1903  (I'idc  Proceedings  of  the  American 
Economic  Association,  Third  Series,  Vol.  V,  No.  i,  Part  II). 


THE    SUBJECT-MATTER    OF   SOCIOLOGY  15 

indicated.^  We  are  not  criticising  his  work,  but  abstracting 
from  it,  for  purposes  of  illustration,  a  series  of  familiar  topics 
which  may  be  treated  by  either  of  two  contrasted  methods.  On 
the  one  hand,  if  the  items  in  the  series  were  treated  by  the  one 
type  of  historian,  a  minimum  of  relationship  would  appear 
between  either  of  them  and  the  others,  or  anything  else.  Each 
topic  would  be  discussed  very  much  as  a  landscape  painter 
snatches  from  an  environment  an  "  effect "  and  puts  it  on 
canvas.  Volumes  full  of  such  detached,  impressionistic 
sketches  would  go  no  farther  toward  making  a  science  of  his- 
tory than  an  equal  bulk  of  description  of  detached  pieces  of 
rock,  culled  from  different  parts  of  the  world,  would  go  toward 
making  a  science  of  geology.  No  one  with  the  least  impulse 
toward  generalization  can  imagine  that  information  of  that 
fragmentary  sort  is  science.  It  may  be  worth  getting  for  other 
purposes  than  science,  and  individuals  may  be  as  well  within 
their  rights  in  busying  themselves  with  this  sort  of  litter  as 
those  who  really  devote  themselves  to  science.  In  itself,  left 
in  the  uncriticised,  unorganized,  heterogeneous  condition  of 
facts  set  side  by  side,  with  no  discrimination  of  relative  worth, 
information  about  the  past  is  of  no  more  scientific  value  than 
the  same  number  of  miscellaneous  items  in  the  newspaper 
today. 

In  the  modern  literature  classed  as  "history"  we  accord- 
ingly find  quaint  and  curious  information  in  all  stages  of 
organization,  from  a  minimum  to  a  maximum  of  coherence. 
Our  argument  is  that  sociology  has  no  part  ncfr  lot  with  the 
type  of  history  which  is  content  to  find  out  facts  and  there  rest 
its  case.  Like  all  genuine  science,  sociology  is  not  interested 
in  facts  as  s«ch.  It  is  interested  only  in  relations,  meanings, 
valuations,  in  which  facts  reappear  in  essentials.  One  fact  is 
worth  no  more  than  another,  if  its  correlation  with  other  facts 
is  concealed.  On  the  other  hand,  every  fact  in  human  experi- 
ence has  a  value  of  its  own  as  an  index  of  the  social  process 
that  emerges  in  part  in  the  fact.     In  so  far  as  the  historian 

"  Vide  note,  p.  14. 


i6  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

hunts  down  facts  for  the  purpose  of  finding  the  social  process 
revealed  in  the  facts,  his  interest  is  identical  with  that  of  the 
sociologist.  The  difference  between  them  is  again  merely  a 
difference  of  greater  or  less  attention  to  different  steps  of  one 
and  the  same  approach  to  knowledge  of  the  social  reality.  We 
might  in>itate  a  verbal  distinction  familiar  in  a  related  field, 
and  say  that  as  ethnography  is  to  ethnology,  so  is  histori- 
ography to  historiology.  I  would  by  no  means  concede  that  the 
subject-matter  of  sociology  is  confined  to  the  past.  It  is  still 
more  concerned  with  interpretation  of  the  social  process  in  the 
present.  This  term  "historiology"  is  suggested  as  a  synonym 
for  one  segment  of  the  arc  of  sociology,  and  merely  as  a 
temporary  expedient  in  this  particular  part  of  the  argument. 
To  point  the  contrast  between  mere  discovery  of  details  of 
past  experience,  and  the  work  that  the  sociologists  want  to  do, 
we  may  fairly  call  the  former  historiography  and  the  latter 
historiology.^ 

The  real  progress  of  the  historians  toward  promotion  of 
science  is  not  in  the  line  of  which  many  of  them  have  recently 
grown  so  proud.  History  does  not  become  more  scientific  by 
shifting  its  attention  frcftn  relatively  insignificant  kings  and  sol- 
diers to  equally  insignificant  common  folks.  History  becomes 
scientific  in  proportion  as  it  advances  from  knowledge  of  details 
toward  reconstruction  of  the  whole  in  which  the  details  have 
their  place.  Tlie  sociologists  have  entered  the  field  of  social 
science  with  a  plea  for  a  fair  share  of  attention  to  that  correla- 
tion of  knowledge,  notorious  neglect  of  which  has  thus  far 
been  the  paradox  of  our  era  of  "inductive  science.""^ 

Recurring  to  the  titles  from  Stubbs,  we  may  add  that 
investigation  of  such  topics  may,  and  indeed  must,  proceed  in 

'  All  this  has  been  anticipated  and  stated  so  conclusively  by  Professor  Ross 
that  there  remains  little  room  for  discussion  {vide  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  pp.  194  ff.,  and  Foundations  of  Sociology,  chap.  4).  Masaryk, 
Grundlngen  des  Marxismus,  pp.  i.iS  flf.,  has  given  energetic  expression  to 
similar  criticism.  Cf.  Reich,  "  Psychological  vs.  Arm-Ghair  Historians," 
Fortnightly  Review,  January,   1905. 

'  Cf.  chap.  35,  sec.  7,  "  The  Sociological  Point  of  View." 


THE    SUBJECT-MATTER   OF    SOCIOLOGY  17 

the  first  instance  with  severe  disregard  of  collateral  details. 
The  test  of  historical  work,  however,  is  not  where  it  begins,  but 
where  it  ends.  It  is  a  misconception  of  fact,  and  a  misuse  of 
terms,  to  speak  of  any  program  that  begins  and  ends  with 
details  as  "scientific."  Historiography  as  such  is  not  science; 
it  is  merely  a  technique.  The  output  of  that  technique  is  raw 
material  of  science.  There  is  no  more  scientific  value  in  know- 
ing merely  that  William  the  Conqueror,  or  William  the  Red, 
or  any  of  their  successors  in  past  centuries,  did  this  or  that, 
than  there  is  in  knowing  what  Edward  VII  and  the  Kaiser 
did  on  their  yachts  at  Kiel  last  summer.  We  do  not  reach 
science  till  we  advance  from  knowledge  of  what  occurred  to 
knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  what  occurred.  On  the  side  of 
the  meanings  of  occurrences,  whoever  follows  connections  as 
far  as  they  can  be  traced,  whether  he  calls  himself  historian  or 
sociologist,  pursues  the  essential  sociological  interest.^ 

*  Tarde  charges  both  historian  and  sociologist  with  attention  to  the  par- 
ticular in  disregard  of  the  general.  For  instance,  he  says  that  physicists, 
chemists,  and  physiologists  "  show  us  the  subject  of  their  science  only  on  the 
side  of  its  characteristic  resemblances  and  repetitions  ;  they  prudently  conceal 
its  corresponding  heterogeneities  and  transformations  (or  •transubstantia- 
tions)."  He  then  alleges  a  contrast  in  the  case  of  the  social  sciences  as 
follows :  "  The  historian  and  sociologist,  on  the  contrary,  veil  the  regular  and 
monotonous  face  of  social  facts  —  that  part  in  which  they  are  alike  and  repeat 
themselves  —  and  show  us  only  their  accidental  and  interesting,  their  infinitely 
novel  and  diversified,  aspect.  If  our  subject  were,  for  example,  the  Gallo- 
Romans,  the  historian,  even  the  philosophical  historian,  would  not  think  of 
leading  us,  step  by  step,  through  conquered  Gaul  in  order  to  show  us  how 
every  word,  rite,  edict,  profession,  custom,  craft,  law,  or  military  maneuver, 
how  in  short  every  special  idea  or  need  which  had  been  introduced  from  Rome, 
had  begun  to  spread  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the  Rhine,  and  to  win  its  way,  after 
more  or  less  vigorous  fighting  against  old  Celtic  customs  and  ideas,  to  the 
mouths  and  arms  and  hearts  and  minds  of  all  the  enthusiastic  Gallic  imitators 
of  Rome  and  Caesar.  At  any  rate,  if  our  historian  had  once  led  us  on  this 
long  journey,  he  would  not  make  us  repeat  it  for  every  Latin  word  or  gram- 
matical form,  for  every  ritualistic  form  in  the  Roman  religion,  for  every 
military  maneuver  that  was  taught  to  the  legionaries  by  their  officer-instructors, 
for  every  variety  of  Roman  architecture,  for  temple,  basilica,  theater,  hippo- 
drome, aqueduct,  and  atriumed  villa,  for  every  school-taught  verse  of  Virgil 
or  Horace,  for  every  Roman  law,  or  for  every  artistic  or  industrial  process  in 
Roman  civilization  that  had  been  faithfully  and  continuously  transmitted  from 


i8  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

Happily  it  is  impossible  for  the  most  atomistically  minded 
historiographer  utterly  to  overlook  the  pointings  of  each  event 
or  situation  toward  connections  with  other  events  and  situa- 
tions. Even  a  list  of  topics  like  the  one  we  have  cited  at  ran- 
dom testifies  of  this  necessity.  "  Results,"  "state,"  ''growth," 
"policy,"  "introduction,"  "maintenance,"  "transitional,"  are 
all  terms  of  relationship.  Moreover,  the  relationships  implied 
are  not  merely  those  of  nearness  in  time  or  space,  nor  of  series. 
They  are  relationships  of  w'orking-with,  of  process.''  This 
process  may  be  contemplated  merely  within  an  arbitrarily 
restricted  area;  e.  g.,  causes  and  effects  so  far  as  they  appear 
in  contrasts  between  the  before  and  the  after  of  relations  of 
classes,  of  economic  systems,  of  constitutional  principles,  of 
legal  enactments,  of  social  customs,  of  religious  conventions, 
in  a  certain  population.  In  this  case  there  is  rudimentary,  but 
narrowly  restricted,  recognition  that  specific  knowledge  gets  its 
value  by  correlation  with  other  knowledge.  The  interest  of  the 
historian  converges  toward  that  of  the  sociologist  in  the  precise 
degree  in  which  the  former  desires  to  advance  from  knowledge 
of  occurrences  as  such,  not  merely  to  their  immediate  correla- 
tions, but  to  their  last  discoverable  meanings  as  indexes  of  the 
whole  process  of  social  evolution.  At  one  extreme  is  sheer 
interest  in  bare  details.  At  the  other  extreme  is  interest  that 
rates  everything  short  of  dynamic  interpretation  of  the  details 
as  mere  preliminary. 

The  same  distinction  may  be  stated  in  terms  of  discrimina- 
tion between  the  economic  and  the  sociological  interest.  Again, 
it  should  be  urged  with  all  emphasis  that  every  use  of  words 

pedagogues  and  craftsmen  to  pupils  and  apprentices.  And  yet  it  is  only  at  this 
price  that  we  can  get  at  an  exact  estimate  of  the  great  amount  of  regularity 
which  obtains  in  even  the  most  fluctuating  societies."  {The  Laws  of  Imitation, 
English  by  Parsons;  New  York,  1903,  pp.  8,  9.)  Whether  Tarde  is  right  or 
not  in  grouping  historians  and  sociologists  ecjually  under  this  censure,  our  point 
is  substantially  the  one  that  he  makes  :  viz.,  that  knowledge  does  not  pass  from 
.scraps  into  s-cience  until  its  regularities  are  recognized  and  their  laws  dis- 
covered. The  sociologists  rather  than  the  historians  arc  making  the  fight  for 
use  of  this  theorem   in  the  social  sciences. 

•  Cf.  below,  chap.  34,  sec.  3,  "  The  Social   Process." 


THE    SUBJECT-MATTER    OF    SOCIOLOGY  19 

which  implies  an  exclusive  division  of  subject-matter  among 
the  social  sciences  is  merely  a  convenient  concession  to  a  con- 
dition which  the  progress  of  science  should  at  least  mitigate. 
As  we  have  said  above,  from  the  sociological  view-point  differ- 
ent workers  in  the  social  sciences  are  not  working  on  different 
kinds  of  material.  They  are  merely  carrying  on  different 
divisions  of  labor  upon  one  material.  That  material  is  human 
experience  in  general.  Regardless  of  the  special  name  by 
which  sections  of  it  are  known,  the  total  purpose  of  social 
science  in  general,  up  to  the  point  where  it  ceases  to  be  mere 
knowledge  and  begins  to  pass  over  into  power,  is  to  discover 
the  meanings  of  human  experience.  Our  present  illustration 
should  bring  out  another  real  difference  between  degrees  of 
approach  toward  this  end. 

In  his  Grundriss  der  allgemeincn  Volkswirtschaftslehre^^ 
Book  II,  chap.  7,  Professor  Schmoller  draws  the  outlines  of  a 
description  of  modern  forms  of  industrial  enterprise.  His  sub- 
titles are  as  follows :  "  The  Conception  of  Industrial  Enter- 
prise (Untcrnchmung) ;"  "Its  Starting-Points,  Trade,  Labor, 
Community,  Family;"  "The  Development  of  Rural  Economic 
Enterprise;"  "Hand  Labor;"  "Movements  in  the  Direction 
of  Larger  Enterprises  and  Organizations  in  Community  and 
Corporate  Form  up  to  1800;"  "Domestic  Industry  (das  Ver- 
lagssystcm) ; "  "  Modern  Enterprise,  Wholesale  Business,  the 
Factory ;  "  "  The  Social  Problem  of  Large  Business ;  "  "  Public 
Stock  Companies;"  "The  Newer  Economic  Associations;" 
"  The  Combinations  of  Traders  and  Promoters,  Syndicates, 
Rings,  and  Trusts ; "  "  Conclusion.  Bird's-eye  View  of  the 
Social  Constitution  of  Industry,  Particularly  of  Capitalistic 
Enterprise." 

Instead  of  selecting  our  illustration  from  economic  topics 
which  are  extremely  fractional,  as  it  would  be  easy  to  do,  we 
prefer  to  take  specimens  of  a  sort  more  representative  of  recent 
tendencies.  In  the  above  titles  we  have  references  to  economic 
phenomena  of  highly  developed  and  complex  types.     Correla- 

**  Third  edition,  Leipzig,  1900. 


20  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

tion  of  most  intricate  nature  is  implied  in  all  such  analyses. 
Can  there  be  room  in  the  premises  for  any  scientific  interest 
distinct  from  and  in  addition  to  the  economic  interest?  The 
answer  depends  entirely  upon  the  extension  which  the  econo- 
mists claim  or  allow  for  their  interest.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
historians,  the  subject-matter  may  be  so  defined  as  to  merge 
the  economic  interest  at  last  completely  with  that  of  the 
sociologist.^^  On  the  other  hand,  the  economic  interest  may 
be  so  circumscribed  that  attention  is  restricted  to  an  economic 
mechanism  merely  as  such,  an  endless  chain  composed  of  the 
main  links :  capital,  labor,  production,  consumption.  In  pro- 
portion as  this  latter  is  the  case,  the  economic  activities  of  life 
are  wrested  by  an  intellectual  tour  de  force  from  the  real  social 
process,  and  are  looked  upon  as  an  entity  sufficient  unto 
itself.  From  the  sociological  view-point,  economic  activities 
are  merely  a  division  of  the  manifestations  of  the  human 
process  as  a  whole.  That  process  begins  with  the  power  of 
individuals  to  feel  wants,  and  to  act  in  response  to  the  stimulus 
of  wants.  It  continues  through  limitless  cycles  of  differentia- 
tion of  wants,  of  individual  types  characterized  by  variations  of 
wants,  of  groupings  of  individuals  incidental  to  effort  to  satisfy 
the  wants,  and  of  institutions  and  other  achievements  deposited 
in  the  course  of  this  incessant  endeavor. 

To  the  sociologist,  every  type  of  individual,  every  combina- 
tion of  activities,  every  institution,  whether  economic,  political, 
artistic,  scientific,  or  religious,  is  of  interest,  not  for  its  separate 

"  For  a  striking  illustration  of  the  tendency  among  recent  economists  to 
see  these  things  essentially  as  the  sociologists  see  them,  x'ide  Sonihart,  Der 
moderne  Kapitalismus,  Vol.  I,  Introduction,  pp.  xxv  ff.  Processor  Sombart  is 
not  directly  discussing  the  relationship  which  we  have  in  mind.  His  argument 
virtually  amounts  to  a  special  application  of  the  general  principle  which  we  are 
formulating,  i.  e.,  to  know  any  economic  relationship  fully,  its  connections  have 
to  be  traced  with  the  whole  process  of  human  activities.  Thus :  "  Was  namlich 
von  dem  Wirtschaftstheoretiker  der  Zukunft  verlangt  werdcn  wird,  sind  wieder 
lange  Gedankcnreihcn,  die  heute  ganz  aus  der  Mode  gekomnien  zu  sein  scheinen. 
Der  Theoretiker  von  heute  b.istelt  fast  immer  cin  hcobachtetcs  I'hanomen  an 
die  nachstliegende  Ursache  an,  wenn  er  es  nicht  vorzieht,  durch  Mcssung  an 
einem  bercitgehaltenen  (meist  ethischen)  Massstabe  seiner  llerr  zu  werden, 
etc.,  etc." 


THE    SUBJECT-MATTER    OF    SOCIOLOGY  21 

self,  but  so  far  as  it  can  shed  or  reflect  light  about  the  articula- 
tions and  the  motivations  of  the  process  as  a  whole,  in  which 
each  detail  in  its  own  degree  is  an  incident.  Without  involving 
ourselves  in  a  boundary  dispute  with  the  psychologists,  we  may 
repeat  that  the  sociological  interest  begins  with  individuals 
feeling  wants.  How  do  those  wants  bring  them  into  contact 
with  other  individuals  feeling  wants  ?  How  do  the  individuals 
thus  in  contact  modify  each  other's  wants?  How  do  the  wants 
of  the  separate  individuals  become  a  species  of  environment, 
conditioning  all  the  individuals?  How  does  the  reaction 
between  the  elements  —  i.  e.,  individuals,  physical  environment, 
and  social  environment  —  become  complex,  and  ever  more 
complex,  in  the  progressively  varying  reaction  of  cause  and 
effect  within  the  combination  ?  How  do  types  of  want,  and  of 
individual  and  social  contact,  and  of  environment,  result  from 
the  different  stages  of  this  process  ?  What  significance,  at  any 
stage  of  the  process,  have  details,  or  groups  of  details,  or  sys- 
tems of  details,  as  means  of  interpreting  the  process? 

Thus,  from  the  sociological  point  of  view,  either  a  group  of 
economic  facts,  or  the  economic  system  of  an  age  or  a  civiliza- 
tion, or  the  economic  theory  of  a  culture  epoch,  is  each  in  its 
way  merely  a  term  in  the  whole  proposition  which  sociology  is 
trying  to  formulate.  The  human  interest  is  in  knowing  the 
human  whole.  The  sociologists  have  broken  into  the  goodly 
fellowship  of  the  social  scientists,  and  have  thus  far  found 
themselves  frankly  unwelcome  guests.  They  have  a  mission, 
however,  which  will  not  always  be  unrecognized.  Their  part 
in  the  whole  work  of  knowing  the  human  reality  is,  in  the  first 
place,  to  counteract  the  tendency  of  specialists  to  follow  centrif- 
ugal impulses.  The  tendency  has  already  gone  so  far  that 
social  science  is  apparently  split  into  fragrpents  which  cannot 
be  reorganized  into  a  unified  body  of  knowledge.  Sociology 
stands  first  for  the  co-ordinating  stage  in  the  knowing  process. 
Recognition  of  its  legitimacy  and  its  necessity  is  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  time.     We  have  specified  some  of  the  grounds  for  this 


22  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

belief,  in  an  editorial  reviewing  the  course  of  thought  about 
sociology   during  the  past  decade.^ - 

To  recapitulate :  The  sociologists  are  attempting  to  show 
that  salvation  of  the  social  sciences  from  sterility  must  be 
worked  out,  not  by  microscopic  description  and  analysis  of 
details  alone,  but  by  such  correlation  and  generalization  of  par- 
ticulars that  the  whole  social  process  will  be  intelligible.  The 
limits  of  this  chapter  restrict  discussion  to  that  phase  of  socio- 
logical theory  in  which  intellectual  apprehension  is  uppermost. 
From  the  human  standpoint  no  science  is  an  end  in  itself.  The 
proximate  end  of  all  science  is  organization  into  action.  The 
ultimate  interest  of  the  sociologists,  therefore,  is  in  turning 
knowledge  of  the  social  process  into  more  intelligent  promo- 
tion of  the  process.  This  outcome  of  sociological  theory  is 
more  fully  indicated  in  Parts  VIII  and  IX. 

^•American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  XI,  p.   i. 


CHAPTER   II 

DEFINITIONS  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Having  indicated  in  chap,  i  the  view  of  sociology  which 
this  syllabus  represents,  we  now  retrace  our  steps,  and  in  the 
remaining  chapters  of  Part  I  we  shall  call  attention  to  some 
of  the  gradations  through  which  approach  has  been  made  to 
the  present  sociological  outlook.  Comment  upon  alternative 
definitions  of  sociology  will  throw  light  upon  the  steps  already 
taken  toward  final  survey  of  the  field  to  be  explored.  From 
possible  definitions  we  select  the  following: 

1.  Sociology  is  the  science  of  society,  or  the  science  of 
social  phenomena} 

2.  Sociology  is  the  study  of  men  considered  as  affecting 
and  as  affected  by  association."^ 

3.  Sociology  is  a  unified  view  of  human  life,  derived  (a) 
from  analysis  of  all  discoverable  phases  of  human  activity,  past 
and  present;  (b)  from  synthesis  of  these  activities  in  accord- 
ance zvith  their  functional  meanings;  (c)  from  telic  interpreta- 
tion of  the  zvhole  thus  brought  to  view,  in  so  far  as  tendencies 
are  indicated  in  the  process  analysed;  and  it  is  -finally  a  body  of 
guiding  principles,  derived  from  this  analysis,  for  the  conduct 
of  life. 

Each  of  these  definitions  or  descriptions  of  sociology  is 
consistent  with  the  others,  and  each  may  be  used  to  complete 
or  to  recapitulate  the  others.^ 

Definition  i  is  the  most  compact  statement  which  can  be 
made  of  the  whole  subject-matter  which  sociology  finds  it 
necessary  to  treat. 

'Ward,  Popular  Science  Monthly,  June,   1902,  p,   113. 

^  Small,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  January,  1900,  p.  506. 

'  For  a  large  number  of  definitions  of  sociology  v/hich  we  need  not  notice, 
vide  Ward,  "  Contemporary  Sociology,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Janu- 
ary, March,  and  May,  1902. 

23 


24  GENEIL\L    SOCIOLOGY 

Definition  2  states  the  same  thing  in  terms  of  the  units 
which  have  to  be  recognized  in  all  our  treatment  of  this  subject- 
matter. 

Definition  3  puts  the  emphasis  on  the  great  divisions  of  the 
content  of  the  science,  after  it  has  employed  its  methods  upon 
the  subject-matter.^ 

The  foregoing  may  serve  at  once  as  samples  of  the  thousand 
and  one  definitions  of  sociology,  and  as  approaches  to  a  work- 
ing definition.  Whatever  their  variations,  whatever  their 
merits  and  demerits,  they  all  indicate  at  last  more  or  less 
definite  purpose  to  reach  the  same  result. 

In  presence  of  the  same  body  of  facts  about  human  experi- 
ence, intellectual  interest  in  organizing  and  interpreting  the 
facts  concentrates  in  several  distinct  ways.  For  instance,  one 
variety  of  thinkers  look  out  over  human  associations,  and  they 
are  moved  to  ask :  "  How  did  men  come  to  associate  as  they 
do  now? "  This  is  the  typical  question  of  those  whose  primary 
curiosity  is  about  the  genetic  aspect  of  human  experience. 
Thinkers  of  another  variety  survey  the  same  facts,  and  they 
ask:  "How  do  men  manage  to  preserve  the  status  quo?" 
This  question  voices  the  peculiar  interest  of  the  men  who  care 
more  for  insight  into  the  present  social  situation,  for  analysis 
of  present  social  arrangements  and  the  way  they  work,  than  for 
knowledge  of  how  they  came  into  existence.  A  third  variety 
of  thinkers  are  relatively  indifferent  to  both  these  questions, 
and  they  ask  rather :  "  What  are  the  visible  indications  about 
the  ways  in  which  men  will  associate  in  the  future?"  This  is 
the  question  that  rallies  the  men  who  are  trying  to  make  the 
things  which  are  seen  disclose  those  that  are  unseen.  It  is  the 
question  of  the  seer,  the  idealist,  the  constructive  philosopher. 

* "  Was  der  Mensch  ist,  verdankt  er  der  Vereinigiing  von  Mensch  und 
Mensch.  Die  Moglichkeit,  Associationeii  hervorzubringen,  die  nicht  nur  die 
Kraft  der  gleichzeitig  Lebenden  erhohen,  sondern  vor  Allem  durch  ihren  die 
Personlichkeit  des  Einzelnen  iiberdauernden  Bestand  die  vergangenen  Ge- 
schlechter  niit  den  Kommenden  verbinden,  gab  uns  die  Moglichkeit  der 
Entwicklung,  der  Geschichte." — Gierke,  Das  dculsche  Gcnosscnschaftsrecht, 
Vol.  I,  p.  I. 


DEFINITIONS    OF   SOCIOLOGY  25 

To  him  past  and  present  are  nothing  except  as  they  contain  and 
reveal  the  future.  Still  another  variety  of  men  take  for  granted 
all  the  answers  to  these  questions  that  seem  to  them  worth  con- 
sidering, and  their  question  is  :  "  What  is  the  thing  to  do  here 
and  now,  in  order  to  make  the  better  future  that  is  to  be?" 
This  is  the  query  of  the  men  who  want  to  be  more  than  mere 
scholars.  They  want  to  accomplish  something.  They  want  to 
organize  rational  movements  for  making  life  yield  increasing 
proportions  of  its  possibilities. 

The  fact  that  these  lines  of  cleavage  exist  between  men 
who  deal  with  sociology,  calls  for  attention  to  several  things 
that  have  caused  much  confusion.  In  the  first  place,  men  of 
these  different  varieties  have  expressed  or  implied  definitions 
of  the  scope  of  sociology  which  perhaps  seem  irreconcilable. 
The  truth  is  that  they  have  merely  emphasized,  and  in  some 
cases  overemphasized,  the  particular  phase  of  the  vast  reaches 
of  sociology  which  is  peculiarly  interesting  to  themselves. 
They  have  very  naturally  placed  special  stress  upon  their  own 
division  of  labor,  and  they  have  incidentally  slurred  over  the 
other  divisions  of  labor.  It  by  no  means  follows  that  these  men 
would  explicitly  eliminate  or  disparage  these  other  portions  of 
science,  nor  that  the  final  answer  to  the  different  types  of  ques- 
tion will  contain  anything  irreconcilable.  The  fact,  however, 
that  men  have  actually  pursued  these  different  inquiries  under 
the  name  of  sociology,  accounts  for  the  wide  divergencies 
between  treatises  and  monographs  that  have  used  this  title.  In 
one  case  we  find  plain  anthropology  or  ethnology ;  in  another, 
simply  old-fashioned  philosophy  of  history,  with  little  except 
its  arrogation  of  a  new  name  to  redeem  it  from  the  condemna- 
tion under  which  the  older  thinking  rests ;  in  other  cases  we 
have  had  political  or  economic  or  ethical  philosophy ;  and  again 
v^e  have  had  the  same  rule-of-thumb  policy  that  experimenters 
have  time  out  of  mind  adventured,  sometimes  to  worse  than  no 
purpose,  and  sometimes  with  fortunate  results. 

Now,  the  truth  is  that  human  experience  has  aspects  and 
implications  that  are  at  one  and  the  same  time  genetic  and 


26  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

static  and  teleologic  and  technologic.^  Probably  very  few 
sociologists,  however  special  the  studies  which  have  given 
them  most  prominence,  have  entirely  neglected  the  other 
aspects  of  social  reality.  At  all  events,  sociology  will  be  an 
abortion  until  it  is  a  successful  integration  of  the  genetic  and 
static  and  teleologic  and  technologic  elements  involved  in  the 
social  process,  and  consequently  in  sociological  theory.  It  is  by 
no  means  desirable  that  division  of  labor  within  the  sociological 
field  should  cease.  On  the  contrary,  our  problems  are  demand- 
ing further  differentiation  without  visible  limit.  The  desirable 
thing  is  that  the  workers  of  the  types  just  mentioned  shall  keep 
within  sight  of  each  other,  shall  remember  that  they  are  parts 
of  each  other,  and  shall  acquire  more  facility  in  correcting 
themselves  by  each  other. 

We  may  say  of  the  innumerable  definitions  or  descriptions 
of  sociology,  of  which  we  have  cited  samples,  that  each  repre- 
sents the  opinion  of  a  person  or  of  a  school,  in  opposition  to 
some  other  view  of  what  sociology  is  or  ought  to  be.  Each 
definition  represents  the  best  that  someone  has  done  in  his 
effort  after  a  clear  and  whole  view  of  all  that  is  necessarily 
involved.  No  definition  has  yet  won  the  assent  of  all  the 
sociologists,  and  it  is  not  certain  that  all  of  them  whose  opinions 
have  weight  can  agree  in  the  near  future  upon  the  same  provi- 
sional definition.  One  fact  nevertheless  crops  out  in  the  writings 
of  all  the  sociologists,  namely :  they  are  all  trying  to  reach  judg- 
ments of  a  higher  degree  of  generality  than  the  subject-matter 
of  any  single  branch  of  social  science  is  competent  to  authorize. 
It  makes  no  difference  how  narrowly  a  given  sociologist  defines 
his  discipline  for  himself;  he  sooner  or  later  begins  to  betray 
his  tacit  conception  of  his  mission  by  propounding  judgments 
that  leap  over  his  own  boundary.  Their  validity  depends  upon 
knowledge  that  belongs,  in  the  first  place,  to  each  of  the  more 
special  divisions  of  social  science.  It  follows  that,  in  spite  of  all 
disagreements  about  territory,  sociology  is  in  practice,  as  a 

'This  proposition  will  be  expanded  in  I'arts  11,  III,  IV,  V,  VII,  VIII, 
and  IX. 


DEFINITIONS    OF   SOCIOLOGY  27 

matter  of  fact,  an  attempt  to  organize  and  generalize  all  avail-  \  , 
able  knowledge  about  the  influences  that  pervade  human  asso-/ 
ciations.  The  men  who  make  the  most  restricted  definitions  of 
sociology  often  indulge  in  the  most  absolute  generalizations  in 
the  name  of  sociology,  and  they  seem  to  take  themselves  quite 
seriously  while  they  are  thus  placing  the  eccentricity  of  their 
logic  upon  exhibition. 

The  impulse  to  generalize  social  laws  of  higher  orders  than 
those  to  be  derived  from  the  traditional  social  sciences  may  be 
audacious.  It  may  look  to  results  which  are  beyond  the  reach 
of  human  reason.  The  ambition  to  develop  a  system  of 
generalizations  which  will  interpret  the  influences  that  mold 
human  destinies  may  be  foredoomed  to  disappointment.  The 
fact  remains  that  the  sociologists  are  in  the  midst  of  an  adven- 
ture which  means  nothing  less  than  going  to  the  limits  of  our 
mental  powers  in  attempt  to  trace  the  workings  of  human 
association  in  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances.  As  was 
said  above,  this  turns  out  to  be  true  about  equally,  though  in 
different  w^ays,  of  those  who  seek  wisdom  through  a  sociology 
defined  as  the  science  of  an  abstracted  section  of  social  facts, 
and  of  those  who  boldly  describe  sociology  as  a  comprehensive 
science  or  philosophy. 

In  a  word,  our  intellectual  limits  confine  us,  as  a  rule,  to 
particular  examination  of  some  fraction  of  the  conditions  of 
life,  upon  which  our  attention  has  been  fastened ;  but  we  all 
alike  tend  to  make  that  special  fraction  of  life  a  key  to  life  in 
general.  We  want  to  see  life  as  it  is,  and  to  see  it  whole.  This 
is  what  is  expressed  in  the  first  definition. 

We  find,  however,  after  preliminary  surveys  of  life  as  a 
whole,  that  all  its  visible  external  phases  are  made  up  of 
some  sort  of  reactions,  physical  or  spiritual,  between  persons. 
We  sum  this  up  in  the  general  term  "association."  To  under- 
stand life,  past  or  present,  we  have  to  be  clear  in  our  per- 
ception that  it  is,  from  beginning  to  end  and  through  and 
through,  an  affair  of  association  between  person  and  person. 
After  w^e  discount  the  purely  vegetative  factor  in  life,   our 


28  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY    - 

drawing  sustenance  from  the  soil,  and  our  dependence  upon 
climate,  all  of  which  we  share  in  common  with  the  plants,  all 
the  external  stimuli  which  affect  us  are  occurrences  in  associa- 
tion with  other  people.  We  make  associations,  and  associa- 
tions make  us;  and  these  reciprocal  actions  are  all  there  is  to 
life  on  its  outward  side. 

This  is  what  is  expressed  by  the  second  formula.  All 
society  is  association,  and  all  association  is  society.  To  get  a 
scientific  view  of  society,  therefore,  we  have  to  resolve  it  into 
details  of  association  between  persons,  and  to  find  out  the 
different  sorts  of  things  that  are  involved  in  human  association. 

It  may  be  worth  while  at  this  point  to  give  further  positive 
expression  of  our  assumption  that  this  sort  of  knowledge  is 
worth  getting.  Many  people  deny  the  value  of  all  generalized 
knowledge.  They  believe  in  the  arts,  but  they  do  not  believe 
in  the  sciences.  If  we  were  to  argue  the  question  of  the  value 
of  sociology,  the  course  of  reasoning  would  be  precisely  parallel 
with  that  which  is  necessary  in  order  to  support  the  claims  of 
any  science,  in  contrast  with  hand-to-hand  knowledge  of  some 
of  the  details  with  which  the  science  deals.  Is  it  good  to  know 
how  to  dress  wounds  ?  Then  it  is  good  to  know  anatomy  and 
physiology.  Is  it  good  to  know  how  to  reduce  crude  ore  to  iron 
bars?  Then  it  is  good  to  know  physics  and  chemistry,  and 
their  application  in  metallurgy.  Is  it  good  to  know  how  to 
raise  wheat,  or  make  cloth,  and  find  a  market  for  it  ?  Then  it  is 
good  to  know  agricultural  chemistry  and  political  economy. 
Is  it  good  to  know  how  to  draw  a  contract,  or  to  transfer  a 
title?  Then  it  is  good  to  know  legal  and  political  science.  Is 
it  good  to  know  how  to  teach  a  boy  or  girl  the  three  R's  ?  Then 
it  is  good  to  know  psychology  and  pedagogy.  Is  it  good  to 
try  to  live  our  own  personal  lives  as  wisely  and  well  as  possible? 
Then,  by  the  same  token,  it  is  good  to  know  sociology. 

As  has  been  pointed  out  in  the  previous  chapter,  and  as  this 
syllabus  will  assume  throughout,  for  many  years  to  come  there 
will  be  a  demand  for  a  few  professional  sociologists ;  but  the 
great  value  of  sociology  to  most  people  will  be  an  indirect 


DEFINITIONS    OF    SOCIOLOGY  29 

consequence  of  its  furnishing  a  point  of  view,  a  perspective,  an 
atmosphere,  which  will  help  to  place  all  the  problems  of  life 
with  which  each  has  to  deal ;  or,  to  use  a  different  figure,  it  will 
serve  as  a  pass-key  to  all  the  theoretical  difficulties  about  society 
that  each  of  us  may  encounter. 

The  meaning  will  be  plainer  after  this  argument  is  finished 
than  it  can  be  at  once ;  but  we  may  say  in  general  that  there  is  a 
close  analogy  between  the  service  which  physical  science  has 
rendered  to  everybody  —  those  who  know  some  of  it,  and  those 
who  know  none  of  it,  alike  —  and  the  service  which  sociology  is 
destined  to  render.  In  the  case  of  physical  science,  the  service 
is  this :  not  one  person  in  ten  thousand  can  state  a  single  law  of 
nature ;  only  rare  persons  can  formulate  exactly  the  general  law 
of  gravitation,  not  to  mention  the  specific  Newtonian  theorems 
of  motion.  Such  phrases  as  "  the  indestructibility  of  matter," 
"the  equivalence  of  forces,"  "chemical  affinity,"  "evolution," 
and  the  like,  are  words  only,  if  they  are  even  as  much  as  that,  to 
most  of  the  people  of  the  civilized  world;  yet  ignorant  and 
learned  alike  show  some  of  the  effects  of  living  in  a  time  when 
these  ideas  are  current.  We  do  not  talk  very  much  in  home, 
and  shop,  and  school,  and  church  about  these  scientific  techni- 
calities, but  we  behave  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  physical 
facts  in  a  way  different  from  that  in  which  people  behaved 
before  these  scientific  ways  of  looking  at  things  were  reached. 

Early  in  the  school  life  of  the  child  the  teacher  begins  to 
say  things  no  longer  in  terms  of  facts  —  as,  "The  dog  barks," 
"The  boy  runs"  —  but  in  the  form  of  generalizations:  "All 
dogs  bark  when  they  are  hurt;"  "When  dogs  are  hurt  and 
bark,  they  are  apt  to  bite ;  "  "  The  boy  who  hurts  the  dog  may 
need  to  run ; "  and  so  on  up  to  the  widest  inductions.  Now, 
the  point  is  that  we  have  learned  to  think  of  the  physical  world 
as  a  place  where  cause  and  effect  reign.  We  may  be  able  to  put 
into  words  not  a  single  large  operation  of  cause  and  effect; 
but  we  are  out  of  the  realm  of  myth  and  miracle;  we  are  in 
the  realm  of  order,  and  regularity,  and  consistent  sequence  of 
antecedent  and  consequent.     Whatever  takes  place  is  assumed 


30  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

to  have  a  rational  reason,  whether  we  have  any  ckie  to  the 
reason  or  not.  Whatever  takes  place  today  we  believe  will 
take  place,  under  exactly  the  same  circumstances,  tomorrow, 
or  the  next  day,  or  any  day.  That  is,  whether  we  know  much 
physical  science  or  little,  we  are  all  in  a  relatively  scientific 
attitude  toward  physical  facts,  and  new  knowledge  does  not 
entail  utter  reconstruction  of  our  plan  of  life. 

Scientific  knowledge  of  society  is  bound  to  do  a  similar 
thing  for  our  attitude  toward  social  facts.  Before  the  French 
Revolution  the  average  Frenchman  held  the  government 
responsible  for  everything,  from  weather  to  war.  The  gov- 
ernment was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  just  as  mystical  as 
Zeus  was  to  the  Greeks  who  heard  Homer's  songs,  or  as 
Walhalla  was  to  the  Norse  braves.  Today,  to  certain  types 
of  people,  society  is  an  arbitrary  imposition  upon  the  indi- 
vidual, W'hile  to  other  types  of  people  the  individual  is  an 
impudent  pretender  in  the  exclusive  domain  of  society.  That 
is,  when  people  look  out  upon  life,  they  still  see  men  as  trees 
walking.  They  do  not  see  real  men,  but  only  figiuTs  in  a 
mirage,  just  as  rain,  and  hail,  and  lightning,  and  thunder,  and 
earthcjuake,  and  birth,  and  growth,  and  death  were  capricious 
actions  of  mysterious  spirits  before  people  got  insight  into  the 
physical  world. 

Technical  sociology  will  always  be  as  rare  as  technical 
astronomy  and  geology  and  biology.  Most  of  us  will  simply 
have  the  use  of  the  general  conceptions  which  it  organizes. 
But,  in  either  case,  as  people  advance  in  knowledge  and  mental 
power,  they  get  their  ideas  into  more  and  more  exact  shape. 
We  may  teach  a  third-grade  class  without  knowing  nuich 
science  of  any  sort.  At  that  stage  we  need  tact,  and  acquaint- 
ance with  live  children,  rather  than  formal  science;  but  the 
farther  along  the  pupils  arc  whom  wc  have  to  teach  —  let  our 
subject  be  mathematics,  or  literature,  (u-  history,  or  Latin,  or 
whatever  —  the  more  we  shall  have  to  shape  our  utterances 
within  the  molds  which  scientific  discoveries  have  fashioned. 
So  it  is  with  sociology.     Whether  we  are  talking  ;il)out  Cain 


DEFINITIONS    OF    SOCIOLOGY  31 

and  Al^el,  and  the  causes  of  Uieir  family  quarrel,  or  about 
President  Mitchell  and  the  coal  barons  measuring  strength 
against  each  other,  or  Britannia  ruling  the  waves,  and  all  the 
other  nations  of  the  earth  meditating  what  they  are  going  to 
do  about  it,  we  are  dealing  with  variations  of  rudimentary 
elements,  operating  in  accordance  with  certain  general  laws, 
displaying  quite  as  evident  regularity  and  consistency  as  is  the 
case  with  physical  occurrences. 

This  syllabus  will  deal  with  some  of  these  rudiments  of 
every  social  situation.  It  will  not  lay  down  rules  for  securing 
human  happiness,  because  such  measure  of  happiness  as  is 
within  our  reach  has  to  be  won  by  practice  of  the  arts  of  life, 
rather  than  by  simply  knowing  the  science  of  life.  The  argu- 
ment will  attempt  to  show,  however,  what  sort  of  general 
conceptions  of  social  facts  must  be  assimilated,  in  order  to 
make  us  relatively  as  intelligent  about  the  social  conditions  of 
life  as  we  are  about  the  physical  conditions. 

We  may  now  return  to  the  third  definition  of  sociology 

(P-  23)- 

This  statement  expresses  what  we  find  out  after  we  have 
worked  a  while  on  the  facts  of  life,  along  the  lines  indicated 
by  formulas  i  and  2.  That  is,  we  find  that  "  social  phe- 
nomena," or  "  society,"  when  examined  somewhat  closely,  all 
run  into  each  other.  They,  or  it,  are  really  one  phenomenon. 
What  is  taking  place  in  Chicago  today,  in  the  way  of  buy- 
ing, and  selling,  and  getting  gain,  of  marrying  and  giving  in 
marriage,  of  playing  and  learning  and  teaching,  of  worship- 
ing God  and  of  shaming  the  devil,  turns  out  to  be  part  and 
parcel  of  the  same  thing  which  the  earliest  nature-men  were 
doing  when  we  find  them  on  the  frayed  edges  of  traceable 
history.  If  there  was  "no  new  thing  under  the  sun"  at 
Solomon's  time,  neither  has  there  ever  been  since.  Stone  age, 
iron  age,  steam  age,  electricity  age,  magic  age,  philosophy  age, 
and  science  age ;  the  age  of  household  religion,  of  tribal  reli- 
gion, of  national  religion,  of  cosmic  religion  —  all  of  these  are 
parts  of  the  present,  and  the  present  was  laboring  in  them  all. 


32  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

We  do  not  see  the  real  fact  in  a  simple  familiar  episode  of 
today  —  like  a  teamsters'  strike  in  the  stock  yards,  or  a  merger 
of  railroad  systems  —  unless  we  see  it  as  a  transient  phase  of 
a  permanent  whole,  which  not  only  fills  the  present,  but  which 
shades  off  gradually  into  an  invisible  past,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  into  an  impenetrable  future,  on  the  other.  In  a  very  real 
sense,  the  life  which  we  live  is  one  with  all  the  life  that  has 
occupied  the  earth,  or  will  occupy  it  hereafter. 

The  moment  this  fact  becomes  clear  to  us,  if  we  have  any 
degree  of  the  genuine  scientific  spirit,  we  begin  to  be  aware 
that  the  second  and  third  specifications  of  the  third  formula 
are  inevitable.  To  understand  any  sort  of  unity,  we  have  to 
take  it  to  pieces  in  thought,  and  then  put  it  together  again. 
We  have  to  perform  the  process  of  analysis  and  synthesis. 
Now,  this  accounts  for  what  has  been  going  on  in  all  the 
different  ways  of  studying  society ;  and  it  accounts  further  for 
the  fact  that  sociology  is  intimately  allied  with  all  the  other 
social  sciences.  We  need  not  turn  aside  to  discuss  the  nature 
of  this  relation.  Enough  that  people  have  felt  the  need  of 
analyzing  society  from  a  hundred  different  points  of  view. 
It  has  proved,  sooner  or  later,  that  each  of  these  types  of 
analysis  has  tended  to  organize  itself  into  some  sort  of  syn- 
thesis with  all  the  rest.  Whether  this  is  the  case  in  every 
instance  or  not,  the  laws  of  the  mind  assert  a  demand  for  that 
sort  of  synthesis,  and  a  hunger  of  mind  remains  wherever  the 
demand  is  not  satisfied.  A  unified  view  of  a  reality,  which  we 
have  come  to  think  of  as  a  real  unity,  involves  alternate 
analysis  and  synthesis  of  the  reality,  until  nothing  remains 
vague,  and  nothing  seems  to  be  unrelated  to  the  rest. 

Wc  may  be  sure  that  our  conception  of  life  is  essentially 
defective  unless  the  most  trifling  sorts  of  occurrences  have  a 
place  in  our  scheme  of  thinking.  In  this  argument  we  are 
showing  the  use  of  some  of  the  most  necessary  categories  in 
which  sociology  arranges  the  chief  types  of  social  facts. 

Then  we  reach  clause  (c)  in  the  third  formula.  We  dis- 
cover, in  the  course  of  sociological  analysis,  that  all  the  moral 


DEFINITIONS   OF   SOCIOLOGY  33 

judgments  which  men  have  entertained  at  any  time  in  the  past 
have  derived  their  force  at  last  from  beliefs  which  men  have 
held  about  the  effects  of  that  conduct  upon  life  as  a  whole. 
Some  picture  of  life  in  the  large  has  swayed  before  people's 
minds,  and  those  things  were  supposed  to  be  good  which 
helped  to  fill  out  the  scheme  of  life.  Those  things  were  bad 
which  interfered  with  the  dominant  facts  of  the  world.*'  The 
same  is  true  today.  Whatever  our  theological  or  philosophical 
beliefs,  we  are  all  substantially  alike  in  holding  that  conduct  to 
be  moral  which  in  the  long  run  and  on  the  whole  works  well. 
Moreover,  we  have  no  other  appeal,  when  we  are  trying  to 
decide  what  is  most  moral  in  a  given  case  —  for  instance,  our 
treatment  of  the  Filipinos.  We  have  no  other  test  of  what  is 
moral  than  our  best  judgment  of  how  different  kinds  of  con- 
duct will  work  on  the  whole.  Tliat  being  so,  ability  to  trace 
the  effects  of  social  causation,  in  past,  present,  and  future,  is  of 
radical  importance  as  a  part  of  real  knowledge  of  human 
soicety  in  general.  We  do  not  know  anything  until  we  know 
what  it  is  for. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  that  I  am  trying  to  describe  a  given 
object,  but  have  no  idea  of  the  service  it  was  designed  to  per- 
form, or  that  I  carefully  repress  all  references  to  its  purpose. 
I  distinguish  certain  upright  columns  and  certain  ci"oss-bars; 
then  a  horizontal  plane  composed  of  leather  or  wood  or  cane ; 
then  some  connections  with  columns  higher  than  the  former, 
and  some  further  cross-bars  connecting  the  before-mentioned 
bars;  but  I  do  not  describe  anything.  I  simply  make  a  cata- 
logue of  some  items  which,  so  far  as  my  description  has  gone, 
are  only  arbitrarily  connected.  But  presently  I  get,  or  choose 
to  divulge,  the  idea  of  a  device  for  the  support  of  the  human 
body  in  a  semi-recumbent  position  —  a  chair.  Then  I  can  give 
some  sort  of  an  account  of  the  relation  of  these  materials  to  the 
process  that  is  to  be  performed ;  and  the  thing  begins  to  have 
reality. 

Nothing  is  ever  described  properly  unless  it  is  described 

°  Vide  chaps.  43-45. 


34  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

with  reference  to  the  end  which  it  is  supposed  to  be  fitted  to 
serve  or  to  the  process  in  which  it  occurs.  This  is  conspicu- 
ously the  case  with  the  fact  of  human  association.  Can  we  get 
such  a  view  of  association  as  a  whole  that  we  may  see  all 
around  it,  and  along  toward  the  outcome  of  it,  and  may  thus 
describe  the  details  and  incidents  of  it  in  the  light  of  its  ulti- 
mate purpose?  If  the  question  means,  "Can  we  find  an 
absolute  terminal  for  the  social  process,  and  can  we  describe 
association  as  a  finished  affair? "  the  answer  is  emphatically  no. 
If  the  question  means,  "  Can  we  discover  a  definite  content  of 
the  social  process,  a  work  which  it  is  always  doing,  and  which, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  it  must  always 
continue  to  do,  so  long  as  the  process  persists?"  the  answer  is 
emphatically  yes.  We  must  therefore  reach  some  sort  of  a  con- 
ception of  what  this  vast  unity  that  we  call  human  society  is 
for;  then  we  must  be  able  to  trace  the  effects  which  different 
kinds  of  action  have  in  the  line  of  promoting  or  retarding  this 
total  purpose  of  society.  We  have  in  this  knowledge  a  basis 
for  practical  morality. 

This  brings  us  to  the  last  clause  of  our  third  formula.  We 
shall  say  more  about  it  under  the  next  title.  The  final  phase 
of  sociology  is  "social  technology,"  viz.,  principles  of  adapting 
means  to  ends  in  practical  improvement  of  society.^  Just  as 
the  science  of  physics  proves  its  right  to  exist  by  contributing 
to  the  various  divisions  of  engineering,  so  the  general  science  of 
sociology  will  prove  its  genuineness  as  knowledge  in  propor- 
tion as  it  can  mold  principles  for  the  successful  conduct  of  life. 
Sociology  is  not  reformation  of  criminals,  nor  administration 
of  charities,  nor  solution  of  the  poverty  problem,  nor  preven- 
tion of  labor  conllicts,  nor  reform  of  government,  nor  improve- 
ment of  education,  nor  the  making  of  religion  practical.  Yet 
sociology  would  be  an  abortion  if  it  did  not  eventually  promote 
each  and  all  of  these  things.  The  matter  may  be  left  for  the 
present  in  this  somewhat  paradoxical  form.  The  cmi)hasig  at 
this  point  is  on  the  fact  that  sociology  is  primarily  kiiou'lcdgc, 

'Cf.  Part  L\. 


DEFINITIONS    OF   SOCIOLOGY  35 

not  action.  It  is  detailed  knowledge,  analytical  knowledge; 
it  is  all-around,  inclusive,  synthetic  knowledge  of  the  whole 
social  reality. 

Comte  said  :  "  See  in  order  to  foresee ; "  "  Know  in  order  to 
foreknow."  This  is  what  all  the  definitions  of  sociology  try 
to  provide  for.  The  thought  is  not  to  frame  a  science  that 
ends  with  knowing;  for  no  knowledge  is  complete  until  it 
passes  into  action.  The  aim  is  science  that  will  pass  naturally 
into  doing.  In  order  to  have  such  science,  the  basis  must  be 
laid  in  -knowledge  which  is  as  general,  and  abstract,  and 
objective,  and  disinterested  as  though  mere  statement  of  truth 
were  the  final  thing  to  be  desired. 

After  this  prolonged  discussion,  an  entirely  different 
description  or  definition  of  sociology  may  be  timely.  For  cer- 
tain purposes  it  is  an  advance  on  the  others,  viz. : 

4.  Sociology  is  an  attempt  so  to  visualise  and  so  to  inter- 
pret the  whole  of  human  experience  that  it  will  reveal  the  last 
discoi^erable  grounds  upon  zvhich  to  base  conclusions  about  the 
rational  conduct  of  life. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  comment  on  definition  4.  We  may 
simply  repeat  that  all  these  definitions  are  results  of  attempts 
to  formulate  the  same  thing.^ 

A  still  more  accurate  description  of  sociology  has  been 
implied  in  chap.  i.  It  is  the  main  thesis  of  this  syllabus,  and 
the  body  of  the  argument  is  in  support  of  it.  We  simply 
record  it  here  as  more  accurate  and  inclusive  than  any  other 
single  formula,  viz. : 

5.  Sociology  is  the  science  of  the  social  process. 

'  This  fact  has  been  discussed  at  length  under  the  title,  "  What  is  a 
Sociologist?"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  January,  1903. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  IMPULSE  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Suggestions  contained  in  chap.  2  have  made  long  discus- 
sion of  the  present  subject  unnecessary.  We  may  merely 
answer,  in  brief,  the  question :  How  did  it  come  about  that 
sociology  is  in  the  world  at  all? 

This  is  something  more  than  a  mere  matter  of  historical 
curiosity.  The  answer  to  the  question  goes  far  toward  explain- 
ing very  prevalent  confusions  about  sociology  itself.  The 
subject  sometimes  seems  to  be  utterly  abstract  speculative 
philosophy.  As  it  is  represented  by  other  men,  it  knows 
nothing  whatever  of  logic  or  philosophy,  and  is  simply  a 
scheme  of  sentimentally  benevolent  experiment.  How  does  it 
come  about  that  such  different  things  can  pass  under  the  same 
name? 

The  answer  is,  in  a  word,  that  in  all  probability  the  senti- 
mental philanthropic  impulse  has  done  more  than  the  scientific 
impulse  to  bring  sociology  into  existence.  Men  of  the  type  of 
St.  Simon  (1760- 1825),  Fourier  (1772- 1837),  and  even 
Comte  (1798-1851),  in  France;  Robert  Owen,  Ruskin, 
Maurice,  Kingsley,  Robertson,  and  Mill,  in  England;  the 
socialists  in  all  countries;  a  group  of  earnest  so-called  "social- 
scientists,"  and  especially  certain  types  of  philanthropists,  in 
this  country,  so  industriously  advocated  tJic  improvement  of 
social  conditions  that  presently  attempts  to  develop  a  scientific 
sociology  became  inevitable.  The  various  agitations  for  social 
reform  or  improvement  worked  in  this  way :  People  of 
philanthropic  temper  decided  that  something  was  wrong  and 
ought  to  be  righted.  It  might  be  the  existence  of  paupers ;  or 
of  competent  workmen  out  of  woirk,  or  of  long  hours,  low  pay, 
and.  bad  sanitary  conditions  for  those  who  did  work ;  or  of 
private  ownership  of  what  might  have  been  owned  by  the 

36 


THE   IMPULSE   OF   SOCIOLOGY  37 

public;  or  a  hundred  other  things.  Earnest  people  declared 
that  these  things  ought  not  so  to  be.  Then  obstinate  con- 
servatives were  roused  to  opposition.  They  said :  "  Non- 
sense! These  people  are  crazy.  Sentimentalism  has  gone 
mad  in  them.  They  mean  well,  but  they  are  trying  to  do  the 
impossible.  It  is  paternalism.  It  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
political  economy  to  attempt  to  help  people  who  do  not  help 
themselves.  There  is  no  scientific  ground  for  these  visionaries 
to  stand  on."  There  was  some  truth  on  both  sides.  Evils 
were  being  allowed  to  take  their  course  which  the  proper 
amount  of  attention  could  have  mitigated,  if  not  wholly 
remedied.  On  the  other  hand,  schemes  of  reform  were  being 
promoted  without  serious  attempt  to  find  out  what  their  con- 
sequences would  be,  outside  of  a  very  narrow  circle.  As 
Herbert  Spencer  has  shown,  in  his  essay  on  The  Sins  of  Legis- 
lators, laws  were  passed,  in  the  most  confident  spirit,  which 
time  and  again  produced  greater  evils  than  they  were  devised 
to  remove.  All  this  tended  to  educate  people  of  a  different 
type ;  people  who  could  see  the  evils,  on  the  one  hand,  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  could  see  that  our  knowledge  of  social  rela- 
tions is  too  meager  to  be  a  safe  guide  in  attempts  to  reorganize 
society.  These  men  said  :  "  Yes,  the  sentimentalists  are  right 
that  we  ought  to  do  better,  but  the  conservatives  are  also  right 
that  we  ought  to  look  before  we  leap.  We  must  be  sure  we 
are  right  before  we  go  ahead;  or,  at  least,  if  we  cannot  be  sure, 
we  must  study  society  deeply  enough  to  justify  our  beliefs  that 
courses  of  action  are  reasonable,  and  in  the  direction  of 
progress."  ^ 

It  followed  that  a  few  people  accepted  the  logic  of  the 
situation  and  marked  out  a  course  of  study  accordingly.  Lester 
F.  Ward,  the  author  of  Dynamic  Sociology,  is  the  best  illus- 
tration. His  position  was,  in  brief,  that  men  may  make 
human  life  vastly  more  rational,  profitable,  worthy,  and  satis- 
fying, if  they  will  train  the  same  sort  of  study  upon  life  as  a 
whole  which  they  now  devote  to  more  or  less  meaningless 

'  I'idc  Spencer,  The  Study  of  Sociology. 


38  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

abstractions  from  life.  The  shortest  and  surest  route  to  better 
doing  in  the  end  is  more  thorough  knowing.  There  is  work 
for  a  few  students  who  will  devote  themselves  to  patient  study 
of  human  society  as  a  whole,  without  impatience  about  the 
length  of  time  which  will  be  required  to  reach  practical  results. 
There  is  work  for  men  who  will  consent  to  be  sneered  at  as 
dreamers,  who  will  be  patient  while  people  revile  and  ridicule 
them  as  impractical  transcendental  philosophers.  There  is 
work  for  men  who  will  run  large  surveys  of  life  in  its  ultimate 
meanings,  and  will  discover  general  principles  that  are  always 
valid  in  society.  This  will  in  the  end  prove  the  most  practical 
sort  of  work,  for  it  will  furnish  the  only  possible  rational 
basis  for  intelligent  programs  of  social  action.  Meanwhile 
nobody  is  fit  for  this  grade  of  work  who  cannot  devote  himself 
to  it  with  patience  and  persistence,  in  spite  of  probability  that 
during  his  lifetime  it  will  yield  very  meager  returns  which  can 
be  put  to  any  practical  use. 

Essentially,  search  for  fundamental  or  general  social  prin- 
ciples is  the  most  practical  sort  of  social  work  that  can  be 
undertaken.  Superficially,  immediately,  and  to  the  person 
capable  of  appreciating  only  concrete  details,  it  is  bound  to 
seem  a  sterility  and  a  mockery.  Yet  sociology  has  come  into 
being  from  this  deep  loyal  impulse  of  social  service.  Its  whole 
animus  is  constructive,  remedial,  ameliorative.  Even  its  most 
abstract  and  technical  refinements  have  their  final  meaning  as 
ultimate  contributions  to  the  art  of  life.  Of  course,  it  is  true 
in  sociology,  as  everywhere  else  in  the  scientific  world,  that 
men  get  swamped  in  technicalities  and  forget  the  larger  inter- 
ests which  alone  make  the  technicalities  worth  while.  In 
spite  of  these  individual  lapses,  sociology  is  through  and 
through  a  plan  to  lay  the  necessary  foundations  of  knowledge 
for  the  most  enlightened  program  of  human  life  which  it  is 
possible  for  men  to  propose.  It  is  not  dead  embalmed  science. 
It  is  an  attempt  to  reach  vital  insight  for  the  sake  of  efticient 
action.     It  is  at  the  same  time  a  consistent  protest  against 


THE   IMPULSE   OF   SOCIOLOGY  39 

action,  or  agitations  for  action,  in  advance  of  ability  to  furnish 
morally  conclusive  reasons  for  the  action. 

After  what  has  been  said,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  two  things 
have  been  made  clear :  First :  The  program  of  sociology  aims 
finally  at  the  most  thorough,  intense,  persistent,  and  system- 
atic effort  to  make  human  life  all  that  it  is  capable  of  becoming. 
Second :  This  thoroughly  social  and  constructive  impulse  is 
held  in  restraint  by  scientific  sociology  until  a  philosophy  and 
a  theory  of  action  can  be  justified.  There  is  nothing  in  soci- 
ology, therefore,  for  people  who  are  not  able  and  willing  to 
consider  today's  practical  affairs  in  their  relation  to  the  largest 
generalizations  of  human  conditions  and  actions  that  the  mind 
can  reach.  The  impulse  is  humanitarian.  The  method  is 
that  of  completely  objective  science  and  philosophy. 


CHAPTER    IV 
THE  HISTORY  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

GiDDiNGS,  "  Modern  Sociology,"  International  Monthly,  November, 
1900. 

Ward,   "  Contemporary    Sociology,"   American   Journal   of  Sociology, 
January,  March,  and  May,  1902. 
""" Vincent,  "  History  of  Sociology,"  ibid.,  September,  1904. 

Professor  Vincent  begins  his  courses  on  the  history  of 
sociology  with  Plato,  and  he  finds  some  contributions  to  the 
subject  in  every  subsequent  period  of  progress  in  thought. 
That  is,  men  have  puzzled  their  brains  about  general  social 
truths  ever  since  Plato,  and  probably  long  before.  There  is 
essential  likeness,  in  impulse  at  any  rate,  between  all  these 
efforts  to  know  ourselves  and  our  life-conditions.  In  that 
sense  it  is  true  that  sociology  is  as  old  as  human  reflection. 

Then  there  is  a  more  special  sense  in  which  a  closer 
approach  to  modern  sociology  is  reached,  beginning  with 
Montesquieu  (1689-1755).  His  two  works.  The  Grandeur 
and  Decadence  of  the  Romans  (1734)  and  The  Spirit  of  the 
Laws  (1748),  are  often  called  the  beginning  of  the  philosophy 
of  history.  Now,  sociology  is  a  radically  different  affair  from 
the  philosophy  of  history,  as  we  find  it  in  the  abundant  litera- 
ture of  that  subject,  from  Montesquieu  to  Marx,  or  from 
Bossuet  to  Buckle,  or  from  Herder  to  Hegel  or  Lotze.  At  the 
same  time  the  philosophers  of  history  were  groping  toward  the 
very  thing  that  the  sociologists  are  attempting,  although  their 
methods  were  very  different.  \  They  wanted  to  discover  the 
general  principles  which  human  experience  shows  to  be  the 
laws  to  which  human  life  must  conform.  The  common  fault 
of  the  philosophers  of  history  was  the  inordinatelv  large  ratio 
of  their  speculative  philosophy  to  their  positive  history.  They 
reasoned  before  the  facts,  and  without  the  facts,  and  thus 
fabricated  an  artificial  world,  instead  of  interpreting  the  real 

40 


THE   HISTORY   OF    SOCIOLOGY  4I 

world.  Yet  the  development  of  the  philosophy  of  history  was 
pioneer  work  for  sociology,  and  we  may  also  say  for  history. 
It  got  a  series  of  untenable  hypotheses  out  of  the  way.  It 
helped  push  real  social  problems  out  into  clear  light.  It  cannot 
be  urged  too  strongly,  therefore,  that  for  practical  sociology 
patient  study  of  the  history  of  the  subject,  including  the  many 
schemes  of  the  philosophy  of  history,  is  thoroughly  worth 
while.  Indeed,  it  will  often  happen  that  the  reality  of  the 
fundamental  social  problems  will  not  be  visible  until  one  has 
gradually  approached  them  along  the  path  which  these  specu- 
lat'  ve  systems  .followed  in  finding  at  last  the  terra  iirma  of 
social  reality.  To  see  that  there  are  actual  problems  to  be 
solved,  we  sometimes  have  to  adjust  our  vision  to  vague  con- 
ceptions of  social  facts  as  they  appeared  in  the  panorama 
which  one  philosopher  of  history  after  another  imagined,  and 
which  one  sociologist  after  another  drew  in  more  literal 
perspective. 

Assuming  acquaintance  with  the  outlines  cited  at  the 
beginning  of  this  chapter,  our  contribution  to  the  subject  will 
be  a  version  of  the  same  facts  from  a  point  of  approach  slightly 
different  from  that  of  either  of  these  sketches.  The  sociologists 
have  exhibited  progress  in  the  development  of  methodology. 
This  progress  has  both  directly  and  indirectly  promoted 
advance  toward  definite  conceptions  of  problems  which  are 
awaiting  use  of  adequate  methods.  In  a  word,  the  present 
problems  of  sociology  are  necessary  sequences  of  increas- 
ing precision  in  presenting  the  exact  questions  which  arise  in 
the  course  of  passing  from  the  known  to  the  unknown.  This 
is  the  case  with  sociology  just  as  with  physics  or  chemistry. 
In  arranging  our  knowledge  of  social  facts,  we  constantly  run 
against  our  limitations,  and  we  forthwith  attempt  to  break 
down  the  barriers  and  arrive  at  more  general  knowledge.  The 
most  convenient  illustration  is  that  of  the  economic  man  who 
served  the  science  of  political  economy  so  faithfully  for  a 
century.  People  tried  to  exhaust  knowledge  of  the  "  economic 
man."    What  does  the  "  economic  man  "  do  under  all  circum- 


42  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

Stances?  But  they  found  at  last  that  the  ''economc  man" 
sometimes  becomes  a  bar  to  knowledge.  He  gets  himself 
installed  in  the  place  of  the  real  man.  Before  we  knjw  it  we 
are  assuming  that  the  only  man  there  is,  is  the  *  economic 
man,"  while  in  fact  "  the  economic  man  "  never  is.  V-^e  take 
it  for  granted  that  what  the  economic  interests  in  men  end  to 
do,  the  actual  man  really  does.  Then  this  turns  out  to  be  wide 
of  the  mark,  and  w-e  are  driven  to  the  necessity  of  staking 
more  general  knowledge  of  man  than  that  which  is  summed 
up  in  the  economic  man.  We  have  to  find  out,  not  what  the 
economic  man  does  in  hypothetical  circumstances,  but  w^at 
the  real  man  does  in  actual  circumstances.  That  involves 
much  more  general  knowledge  of  man  than  traditional  eco- 
nomic science  supposed  to  be  necessary.  The  history  of  soci- 
ology consequently  covers  a  development  of  thought  about 
society,  from  the  most  rudimentaiy  reflections  about  man  and 
his  lot,  through  the  profoundest  metaphysical  speculations 
about  human  origins  and  destinies,  to  the  present  prevailing 
attempts  to  analyze  all  classes  of  human  activities,  and  to 
explain  them  as  terms  in  a  practically  endless  series  of  physi- 
cal and  psychical  causation.  The  history  is  thus,  in  ^_ word, 
the  history  of  the  growth  of  the  mind's  power  to  penetrate  the 
complexity  of  human-  events. 

To  get  our  bearings,  therefore,  in  today's  sociology,  it  is 
necessary  to  survey  the  course  of  thought  by  which  we  have 
arrived  at  our  present  attitude  toward  the  problems  of  society. 
We  must  review  the  forms  under  which  the  pioneers  in  soci- 
ology have  presented  the  problems  to  themselves.  These  early 
attempts  are  instructive,  not  because  they  have  contributed 
directly  to  the  solution  of  sociological  or  social  problems, 
but  because  they  have  led  to  more  exact  statement  of  the 
problems. 

Judged  by  results,  sociology  up  to  date  has  comparatively 
little  to  say  for  itself.  Possibly  the  chief  significance  of  the 
sociologists  is  in  their  instinct  of  the  oneness  of  all  knowledge 
about  men.     If  names  were  consistently  used,  s<3ciology  would 


THE   HISTORY   OF    SOCIOLOGY  43 

not  be  understood  to  mean  a  fragment  of  social  science.  It 
would  be  the  comprehensive  term  for  all  search  into  the  facts 
of  human  association,  somewhat  as  biology  no  longer  means 
any  special  phase  of  the  science  of  life,  but  the  whole  body  of 
investigation  into  vegetable  and  animal  phenomena.  We  are 
obliged  to  use  the  term  "sociology,"  however,  to  designate 
that  standpoint  from  which  a  better  survey  of  human  associa- 
tion is  becoming  possible.  At  present  this  standpoint  seems, 
to  those  social  scientists  who  do  not  occupy  it,  entirely  isolated 
from  their  interests. 

The  best  that  has  been  done  so  far  by  sociology  in  the 
current  technical  sense,  except  incidentally  in  certain  of  its  con- 
crete divisions,  is  to  demonstrate  the  lack  of  method  in 
analyzing  social  relationships,  and  in  searching  for  the  secrets 
of  social  cause  and  effect.  The  history  of  sociology  is  a  record 
of  an  apparently  aimless  hunt  for  something  which  the  hunters 
did  not  know  how  to  describe  or  define.  In  the  last  half- 
century  a  few  students  of  society  have  been  filled  with  vague 
discontent  because  of  haunting  dissatisfaction  with  the  sort 
of  insight  into  social  truth  which  the  traditional  studies  fur- 
nished. These  students  have  beaten  the  air,  sometimes  only  to 
raise  more  dust,  but  sometimes  also  with  the  result  of  chasing 
away  some  of  the  lingering  clouds. 

On  the  whole,  the  history  of  sociology  consists  mainly  of 
attempts  to  plan  a  kind  of  study  which  will  yield  more  intimate 
knowledge  of  society  than  the  traditional  social  sciences  have 
reached.  As  yet  there  is  very  little  to  show  by  way  of  con- 
clusion from  these  quests.  The  fortunes  of  the  attempts  are 
nevertheless  a  precious  legacy  to  the  present  generation. 
They  are,  first  of  all,  object-lessons  in  how  not  to  do  it.  In  the 
second  place,  they  are  indirect  and  fragmentary  indications 
of  how  to  state  the  problems  of  society  and  how  to  proceed  in 
solving  them.  The  history  of  sociological  method  is  thus 
useful  training  for  research,  if  we  are  wise  enough  to  gather 
up  its  teachings. 

In  accordance  with  the  foregoing,  we  may  join  with  Tarde 


44  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

in  finding  the  progenitors  of  our  sociologists  long-  before  the 
name  was  invented.  Tarde  impHes  beHef  that  the  old  philoso- 
phers and  theologians  were  actually  the  pioneers  in  the  fields  of 
study  which  have  at  last  reached  such  intensive  cultivation  that 
the  class  of  investigators  known  as  sociologists  had  to  be  differ- 
entiated.^ He  speaks  of  the  "  change  promising  better  results  " 
which  is  observable  from  the  time  when  "  such  specialists  in 
sociology  "  as  the  philologists,  the  philosophers  of  religion,  and 
especially  the  economists  began  to  perform  the  more  modest 
task  of  identifying  minute  facts  and  of  formulating  their  laws.^ 

There  has  been  a  gradual  recognition  of  interlacings  among 
human  relationships,  and  this  perception  has  been  calling  for 
larger  co-ordinations  of  research,  and  closer  organization  of 
results,  than  older  students  of  society  felt  to  be  necessary.  We 
have  consequently  arrived  at  conceptions  of  the  relations  of 
knowledge  about  society  which  constitute  a  totally  new  setting 
for  all  particular  facts.  This  anticipated  organon  of  knowledge 
about  society  is  sociology.  In  order  to  get  the  most  intimate 
view  of  sociology,  both  as  it  is  and  as  it  must  be,  we  shall  make 
a  rapid  survey  of  certain  typical  attempts  to  formulate  socio- 
logical problems  and  methods.  We  may  do  this  most  con- 
veniently for  our  present  purpose  by  reference  to  Earth's  Die 
Philosophie  dcr  Geschichte  als  Sociologies 

Earth's  thesis  is  that  there  is  no  sociology  except  the  phi- 
losophy of  history.  The  theorem  is  not  true,  but  it  contains 
truth.  The  philosophy  of  history  attempted  to  formulate  the 
laws  of  social  sequences.  Sociology  almost  universally  attempts 
to  formulate,  not  merely  laws  of  sequence,  but  also  laws  of 
past  and  present  correlation.  Many  sociologists  declare  that 
the  most  important  division  of  sociology  is  beyond  both  these 

*  Les  lots  socioles,  p.  26. 

'  Symptomatic  of  changes  taking  place  in  views  of  the  correlations  of  prob- 
lems is  the  phrase  of  Steinnietz :  "  L'economie  politique,  la  branche  [sic]  la 
plus  avancee  et  la  plus  indt-pendante  de  la  sociologie "  (Durkhcini,  L'annee 
sociotogique,    1900,  p.   47). 

'Vol.  1  (Leipzig,  1897).  ^^-  review,  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 
March,  1898. 


THE   HISTORY    OF    SOCIOLOGY  45 

groups,  in  laws  of  social  aims  and  of  the  available  means  of 
attaining  them.^  Even  if  we  were  reduced  to  a  conception  of 
sociology  which  identifies  its  subject-matter  with  that  of  the 
philosophy  of  history,  it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  sociology 
is  perfecting  a  method  which  distinguishes  it  from  traditional 
philosophy  of  history  somewhat  as  astronomy  from  astrology, 
or  chemistry  from  alchemy.  This  is  by  no  means  to  deny 
essential  similarity  of  purpose,  to  a  certain  extent  at  least, 
between  the  earlier  and  the  later  attempts  to  discover  social 
laws.  *'  Sociology  is  accordingly  the  natural  successor,  heir, 
and  assign  of  the  worthy  but  inefifective  philosophy  of  his- 
tory."'^ The  fundamental  difference  between  the  philosophers 
of  history  and  the  sociologists  is  that  the  former  hoped  to 
explain  human  experience  by  means  of  logical  deductions  from 
speculative  premises.  The  latter  know  that  human  experience 
is  to  be  understood  only  by  inductive  investigation  of  an  evolu- 
tionary process. 

It  is  needless  to  ask  how  early  men  directed  their  attention 
to  the  actions  of  men,  and  tried  to  see  those  actions  in  their 
connections  with  each  other,  and  then  tried  to  recount  the  facts 
in  their  supposed  relations.*^     There  came  a  time,  at  all  events 

—  let  us  say,  for  convenience,  with  Herodotus  and  Thucydides 

—  when  this  attention  to  actions  of  men  in  the  large  was  con- 
scious and  deliberate.  It  had  taken  the  place  and  rank  of  a 
dignified  intellectual  pursuit.  It  called  itself  history.  It 
undertook  to  tell  both  what  men  had  done  and  why  they  had 
done  it.     This,  in  general,  is  precisely  what  sociology  tries  to 

*  "  Die  Socialwissenschaft  hat  zwei  Aufgaben  —  Erkenntniss  des  Seienden 
und  Erkenntniss  des  Seinsollenden ;  jener  dient  die  theoretische,  dieser  die 
practische  Sociallehre  "  (Dietzel,  Theoretische  Socialokonomik,  p.  4).  Dietzel 
obviously  means  by  the  term  Sociakvisscnschaft  very  nearly  what  we  shall 
indicate  as  the  proper  connotation  of  the  term  "  sociology." 

"  Die  Aufgabe  der  practischen  Sociallehre  ist  also  eine  dreifache : 
normative,  kritische,  technische ;  die  der  practischen  Naturlehre  nur  eine 
einfache  :    technische"   {idem,  p.  5). 

^Journal  of  Political  Economy,   March,    1895,   p.    173. 

*  On  the  early  history  of  social  ideas,  vide  Riimmler,  Prolegomena  cum 
Platans  Staat  (Basel,   1891). 


46  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

do  today.  History  is,  therefore,  sociology  in  the  yolk.  We 
shall  understand  sociology^  best  not  by  dogmatizing  about  the 
sort  of  thing  which  it  would  please  us  to  designate  by  that 
name.  The  name  has  come  to  stand  for  something  which  is 
asserting  itself,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  and  history,  whether 
the  historians  like  it  or  not,  will  remain  a  collection  of  litter, 
more  or  less  artistically  arranged,  until  it  is  generalized  as 
sociology. 

We  shall  form  a  more  intelligent  view  of  sociology  if  we 
follow  the  trunk  line  of  its  evolution  from  men's  earliest 
naive  attempts  to  see  human  actions  together.  This  is  what 
history  has  been  from  the  beginning.  It  is  what  sociology  is 
now\  Sociology  exists  today  because  a  few  men  have  dis- 
covered that,  if  we  are  to  see  human  actions  in  their  most 
essential  relations^  a  more  complicated' machinery  of  research 
and  organization  is  necessary  than  historiography  controls. 

The  disrepute  into  which  the  philosophy  of  history  has  fal- 
len is  not  due  to  disbelief  that  there  has  been  method  in  human 
experience.  When  a  modern  critical  historian  speaks  with  con- 
tempt of  the  philosophy  of  history,  he  refers  either  to  some  of 
the  obsolete  methods  of  reaching  historical  judgments,  or  to 
some  other  man's  philosophy  of  history.  He  is  surely  not  con- 
temptuous himself,  nor  willing  that  others  should  be,  toward 
his  own  philosophy  of  history.  He  always  has  one,  if  he  is 
anything  more  than  a  rag-picker  from  the  garbage-heaps  of 
the  past.  But  the  more  we  study  the  philosophies  of  history 
that  are  no  longer  in  vogue,'^  the  more  are  we  impressed  by  a 
few  commonplaces  concerning  them ;  for  instance : 

First :  People  have  attempted  to  make  a  very  little  knowl- 
edge go  a  long  way  in  coining  generalities  about  society. 
History  has  proved  to  be  like  the  Bible :  it  may  be  made  to 
teach  anything,  if  we  take  it  in  sufficiently  minute  fragments. 

Second  :  People  have  tried  to  create  the  general  truths  of 
history  out  of  philosophical  presuppositions,  instead  of  build- 

'  Vide  Flint,  Philosophy  of  History.  The  first  edition  is  more  useful  for  a 
general   survey    than    the   incomplete   second   edition. 


THE  HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  47 

ing  them  up  by  collection  and  generalization  of  facts.  That 
is,  they  have  trusted  to  dogmatism  and  deduction  instead  of 
attempting  induction. 

Third :  People  have  had  very  crude  conceptions  of  the  com- 
plexity of  the  things  to  which  their  assumed  historical  prin- 
ciples were  supposed  to  apply.  They  have  not  been  able  to 
analyze  the  subject-matter  so  as  really  to  see  the  elements 
involved. 

Fourth :  Hence  the  foregone  conclusion  of  demand,  sooner 
or  later,  for  a  method  which  shall  be  an  improvement  upon 
that  of  the  philosophy  of  history. 

At  the  same  time,  critical  study  of  the  philosophies  of  his- 
tory is  a  most  valuable  propaedeutic  for  sociology.  Every 
sociological  system  that  is  trying  to  push  itself  into  favor  today 
has  its  prototype  among  these  more  archaic  systems,  and  not  a 
few  recent  sociological  schemes  may  be  disposed  of  by  the 
same  process  that  rules  these  philosophies  of  history  out  of 
court. 

On  the  other  hand,  each  of  these  abortive  philosophies  of 
history  has  contributed  its  quota  toward  comprehension  of  the 
conditions  of  social  problems,  and  together  they  have  indirectly 
promoted  the  adoption  of  adequate  sociological  methods.  This 
fact  may  be  indicated  more  in  detail  if  we  adopt  for  illustration 
Earth's  seven-fold  division  of  the  philosophy  of  history,  instead 
of  discussing  a  score  or  more  of  familiar  theorems  of  alleged 
central  principles  in  history.  We  find  that  each  of  these  views 
attempted  to  bring  into  focus  something  that  is  actually  present 
in  human  afifairs.  It  may  not  be  the  something  alleged.  It 
surely  is  not  present  in  the  proportions  alleged.  It  is  a  real 
something,  however,  and  the  final  science  of  society  must  know 
it  and  place  it. 

For  instance,  Barth  distinguishes  first  The  Individualistic 
View  of  History.  There  are  still  historians  who  hold  that  the 
actions  of  great  individuals  are  the  only  proper  content  of 
history.  There  is  no  universal  or  general  current  which,  from 
the  beginning  of  society,  carries  the  hero  along  with  the  rest  of 
mankind.     On  the  contrary,  according  to  this  view,  each  hero 


48  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

digs  the  course  of  his  own  current.  This  may  have  relations 
with  the  similar  life-courses  of  other  great  men,  but  it  by  no 
means  forms  part  of  a  great  common  current.  The  individual- 
ists think  of  the  great  personalities  as  free,  as  creators  out  of 
nothing,  as  first  links  of  a  new  chain  of  events,  which  are  so 
independent  of  the  past  that  they  are  capable  of  beginning  a 
new  life  in  opposition  to  the  endeavors  of  the  past. 

It  is  evident  that  so  far  as  this  view  prevails  there  is  no 
possibility  of  science.  Science  is  knowledge  of  things  in  their 
correlation.  If  they  have  no  correlation,  there  is  no  material 
for  science.  If  there  are  no  recurrences,  no  regularities,  no 
uniformities  in  societary  events,  there  is  no  possibility  of  the 
rudiments  of  all  science.  There  can  be  no  descriptive  classifi- 
cation. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  problem  with  which  we  are  now 
dealing,  it  may  be  an  advantage  to  state  it  in  concrete  form, 
thus :  The  things  that  we  want  most  to  know  about  society  are 
not  things  of  the  past,  but  of  the  present  and  the  future.  We 
turn  back  to  the  past  because  it  is  once  for  all  before  our  eyes. 
It  is  a  reality.  We  hope  it  will  reveal  some  guidance  for 
present  and  future.  We  want  to  know  how  men  should  act  if 
they  would  make  the  most  of  life.  We  want  to  know  what 
influences  are  at  work,  and  how  they  work,  in  affecting  social 
conditions.  To  that  end  we  inquire  into  great  historical  move- 
ments, for  example  tlie  transfer  of  power  in  the  Italian  penin- 
sula from  the  old  Roman  element  to  the  barbarian  element. 
We  call  it  the  fall  of  Rome.  We  name  other  simihr  move- 
ments: the  breaking  up  of  the  Carolingian  monarchy  into 
European  feudalism;  or  the  consolidation  of  feudalism  into 
the  new  monarchies;  or  the  overthrow  of  the  aristc^cracies  and 
the  enfranchisement  of  the  democracies  in  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  From  such  great  movement-s  we  ought 
to  learn  something  about  what  would  be  involved  in  a  social 
change  of  cf|ual  magnitude  today;  as.  for  instance,  a  solution 
of  the  labor  problem  which  would  give  wage-earners  a  more 
direct  and  decisive  influence  in  the  economic  order. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  49 

Suppose  we  are  asking  how  such  a  change  in  modern 
industrial  society  is  to  be  brought  alx)ut,  and  we  go  to  history 
for  the  answer.  We  find  a  class  of  interpreters  of  history  ring- 
ing the  changes  on  this  one  theme,  namely :  "  Great  social 
changes  are  the  product  of  individual  factors  alone."  Now  this 
answer  is  not  as  simple  as  it  sounds.  One  man  means  by  it 
that  a  few  great,  perhaps  almost  superhuman,  men  —  Solon, 
Alexander,  Caesar,  Napoleon,  Bismarck  —  have  been  the  main- 
springs of  social  movement,  and  the  rest  of  the  human  herd 
have  been  inert  masses  moved  by  them.  Others  mean  that  social 
movements  are  simply  the  slow  accretions  of  volume  or  force 
by  addition  of  one  human  individual  to  another  —  the  drop 
added  to  drop  that  wears  the  rock  away,  or  the  atom  added  to 
atom  in  one  scale  which  at  last  overbalances  the  huge  mass  in 
the  opposite  scale.  The  individualistic  view  would  say  to  the 
wage-earners  of  our  present  generation  who  want  their  class 
to  become  the  dominant  type  in  the  state :  "  To  bring  about  the 
industrial  revolution  that  you  want,  either  *  labor '  must  incar- 
nate itself  in  a  giant  or  hero,  who  will  perform  some  modern 
labors  of  Hercules  and  make  the  world  over;  or  the  mere 
multiplication  of  the  numbers  of  the  wage-earners,  regardless 
of  combinations  or  changes  of  their  ideas,  or  the  co-operation 
of  other  classes,  or  the  limitations  of  the  constructive  capacity 
of  the  operative  class,  will  in  time  effect  the  desired  social 
transformation,  or  it  is  impossible  altogether." 

This  view  of  social  forces  makes  individuals  alone  — 
whether  the  few  great  and  forceful  ones  or  the  multitude  of 
average  ones  —  the  sole  factors  in  social  complications. 

Now,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  this  must  be  true.  Society 
is  made  up  of  individuals,  just  as  matter  is  supposed  to  be 
made  up  of  atoms ;  but  no  theory  of  atoms  alone  will  account 
beforehand  for  the  behavior  of  the  particular  atoms  that  make 
hydrogen  or  oxygen  or  sulphur  or  phosphorus.  Nor  will  any 
theory  of  the  atom  alone  account  for  what  happens  when  one 
pair  of  substances  enter  into  a  reaction,  and  the  unlike  results 
when  another  pair  of  substances  react  upon  each  other.     The 


so  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

case  is  similar  with  the  actions  of  individuals.  All  social  facts 
are  combinations  of  individual  facts.  Yet  the  influences  at 
work  in  these  combinations  are  not  accounted  for  by  any 
a  priori  conception  of  individuals  which  we  can  reach.  For 
instance,  a  hundred  socialistic  German  students  are  mustered 
into  the  imperial  army  and  are  sworn  to  defend  the  Kaiser 
and  the  flag.  So  long  as  they  wear  the  uniform  they  are 
imperialists,  not  socialists.  Now,  there  is  something  besides 
the  sum  of  those  individualities  which  is  at  work  in  giving  them 
a  character,  when  they  are  combined,  that  is  different  from  the 
sum  of  their  characters  as  isolated  individuals.  In  this  case 
the  flag  and  the  uniform  may  symbolize  the  added  something. 
At  all  events,  it  would  be  a  very  shallow  and  unpenetrating 
account  that  would  find  in  the  company  merely  oaie  hundred 
detached  and  self-sufficient  individuals. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  individualistic  view  of  history 
marks  a  sort  of  extreme  swing  of  the  pendulum  from  the 
fatalistic,  mass  notion  of  human  affairs  that  prevailed  before 
men  were  conscious  of  their  own  personal  agency,  before  they 
had  fairly  differentiated  themselv^  from  their  surroundings. 
It  may  be  said  that  the  task  of  finding  out  the  facts  about 
influences  in  society  is  virtually  the  task  of  finding  the  qual- 
ifications which  must  be  thought  of  when  we  regard  human 
fortunes  as  events  of  which  individuals  are  the  elements.  It 
may  be  said  that  the  individualistic  view  gives  us  a  primary 
term  in  the  social  equation,  and  that  our  further  work  is  to  find 
out  the  value  of  the  other  terms  which  affect  the  value  of  the 
individual  term.  These  pn^positions  are  no  doubt  approxi- 
mately correct.  The  individualistic  conception  of  human 
affairs  is  not  utterly  false.  It  is  a  rough,  uncritical, .  inexact 
exaggeration  of  a  perception  which  must  l)e  reduced  to  more 
precise  and  proportionate  formulation. 

In  this  play  between  unscientific,  uncritical,  wholesale 
assumptions  about  society,  students  have  been  brought  to  face 
a  specific  problem,  namely :  Given  individual  elements  in 
society,  given  also  a  certain  coherence  of  society,  by  virtue  of 


THE   HISTORY    OF    SOCIOLOGY  51 

which  influences  stronger  than  those  of  any  individual  persist, 
or  at  least  influences  persist  with  more  than  the  personal  energy 
of  any  individual,  what  are  the  specific  modifying  and  differ- 
entiating factors  which  procure  social  motion,  progress, 
development?  Accordingly  the  historians,  independent  of  the 
sociologists,  have  struck  out  in  a  new  direction  in  the  past 
half-century.  The  older  historians  told  of  the  fortunes  of  per- 
sons, of  states,  of  humanity.  The  newer  history,  however, 
becomes  more  specific  and  realistic.  Both  in  theory  and  in 
practice  it  considers  nations  as  the  vehicles  of  culture.  It 
traces  the  development  of  their  internal  conditions.  It  com- 
pares them  with  each  other.  It  tries  to  fix  upon  what  is  typical 
in  each,  and  by  that  course  to  arrive  at  the  history  of  humanity. 

Even  in  conservative  Germany,  perceptions  of  scientific 
demands  which  have  arisen  in  the  course  of  arriving  at  such 
historical  views  have  produced  sociologists.  They  are  not 
recognized  in  many  of  the  universities,  but  they  are  working 
under  various  titles  —  philosophers,  historians,  economists,  etc. 
They  are  searching  for  the  most  general  truths  about  human 
associations,  and  about  the  forces  that  are  working  in  them. 
In  other  words,  the  friction  between  the  individualistic  view 
of  history  and  opposing  views  has  been  one  of  several  distinct 
producers  of  inductive  inquiry  into  real  conditions.  When  the 
different  inductive  inquiries  so  provoked  have  become  aware 
of  each  other,  they  have  been  seen  to  constitute  a  new  line  of 
approach  to  social  reality,  and  they  have  together  received  the 
name  "sociology." 

A  similar  form  of  conclusion  must  follow  due  considera- 
tion of  each  attempt  to  account  for  the  historical  movements 
of  society.  Earth's  second  title  is  The  Anthropo-Geographical 
Vieiv  of  History.  Having  shown  in  the  foregoing  paragraphs 
how  a  single  one-sided  view  of  past,  events  has  helped  to  form 
our  methods  of  thinking,  and  to  make  scientific  demands  more 
precise  and  adequate,  we  need  not  consider  other  one-sided 
views  at  equal  length.  The  outcome  in  each  case  is  essentially 
the  same.     Each  one-sided  view  has  drawn  attention  to  an 


52  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

actual  factor  in  the  problem  of  society.  The  sociologists  are 
now  stating  the  problem  in  terms  of  all  these  factors  so  far 
discovered.  The  form  of  the  sociological  inquiry  is  not  the  old 
form  of  the  historians:  ''Is  the  secret  of  human  life  this  or 
that?  "  The  sociological  form  of  inquiry  is  :  '*  Given  observed 
forms  of  influence  in  human  affairs,  how  much  of  each  detected 
form  of  influence  is  present  in  a  given  social  movement,  and 
in  what  measure  does  it  work  ?  "  The  several  one-sided  views 
have  thus  been  merged  into  a  many-sided  inquiry.** 

We  should  notice,  in  passing,  that  a  similar  practical  result 
is  produced  upon  individuals  by  the  study  of  the  social  sciences. 
Whether  a  given  student  gets  a  system  of  social  doctrine  satis- 
factory to  himself  or  not,  he  emerges  from  the  study  of  the 
social  sciences,  as  at  present  organized,  with  a  perception  that 
the  world  of  people  is  the  arena  of  many  interactive  influences. 
In  his  judgments,  either  of  past  times  or  of  current  events,  the 
student  of  the  social  sciences,  from  the  sociological  point  of 
view,  is  forearmed  against  the  narrowness  that  presupposes 
the  prevalence  of  a  single  force  rather  than  the  interplay  of 
many  forces.  The  outlook  that  sociology  makes  familiar 
brings  into  the  field  of  view  the  whole  number  of  modifying 
influences  that  have  been  discovered  among  men.  The  soci- 
ologist, studying  the  present  condition  of  China,  or  Turkey,  or 
Japan,  or  the  Philippines,  or  Spain,  or  Germany,  or  France,  or 
Russia,  or  the  United  States,  does  not  imagine  that  he  has 
before  him  a  simple  case  of  economics  or  politics  or  ethics.  He 
sees  the  resultant  of  numerous  physical  and  spiritual  antece- 
dents, varied  in  each  case  by  special  combinations,  and  con- 
stituting in  each  case  a  peculiar  organization  of  primary  and 
secondary  factors,  the  force  of  which  has  to  be  determined  in 
each  instance  for  itself. 

Thus  the  development  of  thought  about  society  has  had  the 
double  result,  on  the  one  hand,  of  enlarging  and  clarifying 

'  yide  Chamberlin,  "  The  Method  of  the  Multiple  Working  Hypothesis," 
Journal  of  Geology,  November,  1897.  This  paper  is  a  veritable  sermon  in 
stones,  which  the  sociologists  would  do  well  to  consider.  Mutatis  mutandis,  it 
may  be  taken  bodilj   as  a  lesson   in   sociological   methodology. 


THE    HISTORY    OF    SOCIOLOGY  53 

technical  social  science,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  forming  the 
molds  in  which  practical  judgments  of  the  world's  present 
social  problems  must  be  cast. 

All  the  one-sided  views  of  history  are,  in  the  first  place, 
exaggerations  of  ideas  which  may  be  detected  very  early,  at 
least  in  germs  or  suggestions.  Barth  observes  that  something 
of  this  anthropo-geographical  conception  of  history  is  to  be 
found  in  Hippocrates,  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  etc.  Coming 
to  more  recent  times,  the  idea  was  so  prominent  in  Herder  that 
many  readers  have  hastily  reduced  his  theory  of  history  to 
terms  of  this  notion  alone.  Ritter,  professor  in  the  university 
and  military  school  at  Berlin  (1779-1859),  systematically 
expanded  the  idea.  His  geographical  studies  have  become  the 
basis  for  school  work  in  the  subject  in  Germany,  and  his  influ- 
ence may  be  traced  throughout  the  world.  His  ambition  was 
to  make  geography  an  interpreter  of  history.  His  purpose 
may  be  described  as  a  wish  to  develop  a  dynamic  geography. 
Yet  it  would  be  unfair  to  treat  him  as  blind  to  all  other  influ- 
ences affecting  society.  He  distinctly  recognized  a  certain 
dimhiucndo  movement  in  history,  so  far  as  the  relative  influ- 
ence of  physical  environment  is  concerned.  The  view  to 
w'hich  Ritter  gave  such  prominence  has  been  exploited  with 
less  balance  by  Buckle '^  and  Draper.^"  The  essential  thought 
which  Ritter  did  so  much  to  justify  impressed  President 
Oilman,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  while  he  was  still  at 
Yale.  He  might  have  developed  a  sociology  on  the  basis  of 
geography,  if  he  had  not  turned  to  administrative  tasks.^^ 
Professor  Geddes,  of  Edinburgh,  is  the  most  energetic 
expounder  of  this  idea  in  the  English-speaking  world.  Not 
the  most  prominent  geographer,  but  the  most  scholarly  expo- 
nent of  this  particular  anthropo-geographical  idea  on  the  con- 
tinent today,   is   Ratzel,   of  Leipzig   (Anthropo-Geographie). 

^History  of  Cii'ili"ation  in  England. 

^"Intellectual  Development  of  Europe. 

"  Cf.  Ripley,  "  Geography  as  a  Sociological  Study,"  Political  Science  Quar- 
terly, December,   1895. 


54  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

Ratzel,  again,  is  to  be  classed  with  Herder  and  Ritter  in  pla- 
cing his  pecuhar  perception  in  balance  with  co-operating  forces. 
He  aims  to  show  the  ways  in  which  humanity  depends  upon 
the  spatial  relations  of  the  earth.  While  the  analysis  of  influ- 
ences from  the  environment,  as  carried  out  by  Ratzel,  is  full  of 
instruction,  and  while  it  opens  up  still  uncultivated  fields  of 
research,  it  is  still  comparatively  free  from  the  fault  of  his- 
torical one-sidedness.  Not  so  with  men  who  have  taken  up 
this  clue  to  history  without  the  corrective  which  Ratzel 
expresses  in  the  words :  "  Not  nature,  but  mind,  produces 
culture."  For  instance,  Mougeolle^^  declares:  "Thus  the 
environment  alone  can  truly  explain  the  chief  events  of  history, 
and  furnish  the  solution  of  its  most  general  problems."  ^^ 

As  in  the  case  of  the  individualistic  conception  of  history, 
so  with  this  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  part  that  nature  has 
played  in  the  formation  of  human  society.  Doubtless  the  social 
problem  has  waited  longer  than  it  ought  for  adequate  formula- 
tion, because  many  men  have  too  implicitly  and  literally 
believed  with  Plato  that  "  ideas  make  the  world."  Such  men 
have  told  the  story  of  history  as  though  it  were  a  ghost-dance 
on  a  floor  of  clouds.  They  have  tried  to  explain  how  spirits 
with  negligible  bodies  have  brought  about  the  visible  results. 
They  would  not  admit  that  the  facts  of  human  association 
have  been  the  work  of  flesh-and-blood  men  with  their  feet  on 
the  ground.  How  much  of  the  soil  and  the  sunshine  and  the 
wind  and  snow  and  rain  has  lodged  itself  in  men's  works  and 
ways  remains  to  be  determined.  At  all  events,  we  have  been 
taught  by  the  contradictions  of  extremists  that  history  in  the 
future  will  neither  be  turned  over  entirely  to  the  weather 
bureau,  nor  will  it  be  exclusively  the  affair  of  the  introspective 
rhapsodist.  Human  fortunes  are  not  diluted  climatology. 
They  are  not  visualized  spirituality,  in  any  sense  at  least  which 
we  can  comprehend.  They  are  the  resultant  of  physical  and 
spiritual  forces,  reacting  upon  each  other  in  the  most  complex 

"  Le  probli-me  de  I'histoire   (Paris,    1886). 

"  Cf.  chap.  30,  sec.  4,  "  The  Physical  Environment." 


THE    HISTORY   OF    SOCIOLOGY  55 

combinations  which  we  know.^"*  They  will  not  be  summed  up 
in  any  simple  equation  of  a  single  term.  The  views  of  history 
which  exaggerate  a  co-operating  factor  into  an  exclusive 
factor,  and  assume  that  a  constant  influence  is  a  monopoly  of 
influence,  are  gradually  forcing  us  to  study  new  terms  in  the 
social  problem.  Each  partial  view  of  the  influences  that  have 
made  and  remade  men  and  associations  gives  us  a  'distinct 
factor  about  which  correlated  search  by  the  different  kinds  of 
sociologists  must  find  means  of  answering  the  general  question : 
"  In  what  cases  does  this  factor  work ;  with  what  tendencies 
does  it  work;  with  what  ratio  of  force  does  it  work?"  In 
other  words,  the  sociological  scheme  which  appropriates  the 
lessons  of  previous  failure  to  penetrate  the  social  mystery,  will 
have  a  use  for  all  accessible  knowledge  about  the  time,  place, 
direction,  and  intensity  of  the  purely  topographical  and  climato- 
logical  factors  among  social  influences ;  but  for  the  same  rea- 
son it  will  have  an  appropriate  place  also  for  all  the  other 
influences  that  may  be  discovered. 

Earth's  third  title  is  The  Ethnological  Viezv  of  History. 
It  is  not  easy  to  draw  a  sharp  line  of  division  between  this  view 
and  the  second,  just  noticed.  Of  the  two,  the  view  now  to  be 
considered  seems  to  have  more  prominence  in  today's  social 
science.  It  appears  less  extravagant,  less  open  to  the  suspicion 
of  being  crass  materialism  and  mechanicalism,  and  therefore 
less  taxing  to  the  credulity.  It  is  easier  to  see,  or  to  imagine 
that  we  see,  how  the  Teutons  and  the  Romans  could  coalesce 
in  a  third  something  which  turns  out  to  be  the  Carolingian 
empire,  than  to  see  how  the  dust  of  one  peninsula,  stirred  by 
one  set  of  breezes,  made  Spartans,  while  the  dust  of  another 
peninsula,  vexed  by  other  breezes,  made  Etruscans.  The 
traditional  belief  that  blood  tells  prepares  a  welcome  in  our 
minds  for  the  stock-breeder's  theory  of  history.  It  is  supposed 
to  have  such  backing  in  the  findings  of  biology  that  the  people 
who  get  the  view  fairly  into  their  minds  are  strongly  tempted 

'*  This  necessary  classification  of  forces  is  dualistic  merely  in  form.  It 
rests  upon  a  deeper  monism. 


56  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

to  trust  in  its  all-sufficiency,  and  to  abandon  further  search  for 
historical  explanations.  Indeed,  the  ethnologists  and  the  ortho- 
dox economists  are  the  closest  competitors  for  the  distinction 
of  making  a  very  narrow  abstraction  stretch  to  the  utmost 
extension  as  a  total  explanation.  The  prestige  of  the  ethno- 
logical view  rests,  however,  upon  very  precarious  support. 
Whether  genetic  laws  large  enough  to  explain  any  single  his- 
torical movement  have  been  demonstrated  within  the  field  of 
ethnology  proper  is  open  to  serious  question.  Much  that  passes 
for  severe  ethnological  science  is  merely  ingenious  speculation. 
Even  if  it  is  proved  that  races  have  been  the  vehicles  of  influ- 
ences which  have  affected  different  societies  in  different  ways, 
it  remains  to  be  proved  that  the  racial  element  was  cause  rather 
than  eft'ect  of  this  influence,  or  of  some  other  which  was  a 
more  important  cause.  Moreover,  many  of  the  theorems  of 
racial  influence  are  theses  in  psychics  rather  than  in  physiology 
or  zoology.  They  are  dogmas  in  folk-psychology,  not  data  or 
results  of  ethnology  at  all. 

In  this  connection  the  most  prominent  ethnologists  have 
failed  to  clarify  their  ideas.  Such  men  as  TojMnard  in  France, 
and  Tylor  in  England,  and  Brinton  in  this  country  have  per- 
formed some  grotesque  straddles  by  defining  ethnology  as  a 
physical  science  and  then  including  in  it  every  manifestation 
of  man's  complex  nature.  They  have  seemed  to  be  uncertain, 
and  they  have  surely  left  their  readers  uncertain,  whether  they 
were  discovering  physical  traits,  and  then  showing  how  these 
lend  themselves  to  industrial  and  cultural  development ;  or 
whether  they  were  starting  with  mental  developments  and  were 
reasoning  back  to  differences  of  physical  traits  sufficient  to 
account  for  the  phenomena.  In  other  words,  the  most  eminent 
ethnologists  have  not  yet  shown  themselves  such  patient 
investigators  of  the  facts  within  their  own  field  that  their  con- 
clusions have  had  a  very  profound  effect  upon  laymen,  espe- 
cially those  who  are  experts  in  other  branches  of  physical 
science.'*'^    This  is  likely  to  grow  less  and  less  true  since  more 

'°  Cf.  Cummings,  "  Ethnic  Factors  and  the  Movement  of  Population," 
Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  February,    igoo. 


THE   HISTORY    OF    SOCIOLOGY  57 

carefully  trained  scholars  are  entering  the  ethnological  field. 
The  work  of  many  of  these,  however,  tends  to  the  opposite 
extreme  of  mere  description  and  classification  of  details,  from 
which  no  general  truth  of  large  dimensions  emerges.  Hence 
the  recent  differentiation  of  the  folk-psychologists.  They  are 
really  only  ethnologists  of  a  new  type.  They  are  less  first-hand 
discoverers  of  ethnological  facts,  and  more  interpreters  of  the 
material  that  collectors  and  classifiers  place  at  their  disposal. 
The  two  types  together  realize  a  division  of  labor  that  is  bound 
to  make  ethnology  a  powerful  ally  of  the  other  search-sciences 
in  revealing  the  social  mystery. 

We  need  not  deny  that  blood  tells,  but  we  should  not  be 
prematurely  certain  that  we  can  hear  what  it  tells,  or  that  we 
can  distinguish  the  voice  of  the  particular  blood  that  speaks. 
Whatever  truth  is  to  be  found  out  along  this  line  is  apparently 
farther  from  present  demonstration  than  the  truths  about  the 
transmission  of  physical  traits  in  general.  It  will  doubtless  be 
long  before  we  shall  be  able  to  distinguish  between  proof  in 
this  field  and  fiction  under  a  thin  mask  of  illustration.  Even  if 
we  were  disposed  to  assume  a  priori  that  the  whole  truth  lies  in 
this  direction,  we  should  be  phenomenally  credulous  to  believe 
that  the  truth  is  already  in  sight,  sufficient  to  make  a  science  of 
society  to  be  remotely  compared  in  precision  with  either  of  the 
physical  sciences.  The  one  prominent  result  thus  far  of 
attempts  to  fit  the  ethnological  assumption  to  interpretation  of 
the  social  mystery,  has  been  to  impress  judicial  investigators 
with  the  non-correspondence  between  the  hypothesis  and  the 
evidence  chiefly  relied  on  for  proof.  Instead  of  making 
toward  the  conclusion  that  blood  corpuscles  in  one  race  so 
differ  from  the  blood  corpuscles  of  another  race  that  civiliza- 
tions are  contrasted  with  each  other  in  consequence,  the  evi- 
dence makes  for  the  conclusion  that  ideas  weigh  more  than 
differences  in  animal  tissue  in  determining  what  the  traits  of 
associated  life  shall  be.  This  is  the  reason  why  ethnology  is 
finding  its  most  promising  developments  today  in  the  line  of 
ethnic  or   folk-psychology,   which   is  only  a  cross-section  of 


58  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

mass-psychology.  Each  is  a  chapter  of  social  psychology  in 
general. 

The  problems  of  the  relation  of  the  animal  organism  to  the 
spiritual  nature  of  man  seem  at  present  to  be  in  progress 
toward  solution,  if  anywhere,  in  the  psychological  laboratories. 
People  who  deal  with  human  phenomena  in  bulk  are  not  likely 
to  solve  these  problems,  whatever  they  call  themselves.  They 
can  merely  deal  with  aspects  of  human  facts  which  leave  these 
fundamental  questions  unexplored.  Whatever  may  be  the 
form  which  our  conclusions  may  one  day  take  about  the  influ- 
ence of  the  body  upon  the  mind,  our  interpretation  of  human 
events  must  have  respect  to  this  by-product  of  ethnological 
theory,  namely,  the  observation  that  different  ethnic  and  tribal 
groups  somehow  come  to  be  the  vehicles  of  a  tradition  which, 
so  far  as  effects  appear,  might  as  well  be  part  and  parcel  of 
their  physical  structure.  Their  bodies  and  their  tradition  of 
thought  and  feeling  constantly  function  together.  The  colored 
and  the  white  elements  in  the  United  States,  for  example,  are 
not  made  up  of  individuals  of  absolutely  identical  force  in  the 
social  equation.  A  group  of  colored  men  and  a  group  of  white 
men,  who  had  passed  through  schools  of  the  same  grade  in  the 
same  city,  would  not  be  social  forces  of  identical  quality  and 
equal  energy,  for  the  reason  that  they  somehow  carry  along 
unlike  traditions  from  unlike  conditions  in  the  past.  We  may 
see  these  differences  in  men,  and  we  should  see  them  as  they 
manifest  themselves  in  racial  peculiarities.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  should  not  assume  that  these  racial  manifestations  present 
to  us  irreducible  factors  of  human  force.  Tliat  would  be  like  a 
theory  of  chemistry  which  assumes  that  vapor  and  water  and 
ice  are  three  irreducible  elements. 

The  final  solution  of  the  social  mystery  will  have  an  answer 
to  the  question :  "  What  is  the  value  of  the  racial  factor  in  the 
social  equation?"  Meanwhile,  neither  physiology  nor 
zoology  nor  ethnology  nor  history  lends  sanction  to  the  super- 
ficial assumption  that  the  social  equation  is  an  affair  of  only 
one   set   of   variables,    namely,    the    racial    characteristics    of 


THE    HISTORY    OF    SOCIOLOGY  59 

peoples.  When  we  have  in  mind  the  ethnic  factor  in  the  social 
problem,  it  is  necessary  to  render  the  sociological  question  in 
this  form :  "  What  is  the  formula  of  the  racial  factor  in  its 
combinations  with  all  the  other  factors  in  the  social  equation  ?  " 

Earth's  fourth  title  is  The  Culture-History  View}^  The 
very  idea  of  "culture,"  as  the  term  is  used  among  German 
scholars,  has  hardly  entered  distinctly  into  American  calcula- 
tions. In  order  to  indicate  the  view-point  which  is  occupied 
by  the  interpreters  to  whom  the  title  of  this  paragraph  applies, 
it  is  necessary  to  define  words  in  a  way  not  yet  adopted  as  a 
rule  in  English  usage. 

What,  then,  is  "  culture "  (Knltur)  in  the  German  sense  ? 
To  be  sure,  the  Germans  themselves  are  not  wholly  consistent 
in  their  use  of  the  term,  but  it  has  a  technical  sense  which  it  is 
necessary  to  define.  In  the  first  place,  "culture"  is  a  condition 
or  achievement  possessed  by  society.  It  is  not  individual.  Our 
phrase  "-a  cultured  person  "  does  not  employ  the  term  in  the 
German  sense.  For  that,  German  usage  has  another  word, 
gebildet,  and  the  peculiar  possession  of  the  gebildeter  Mann 
is  not  "  culture,"  but  Bildung.  If  we  should  accept  the  German 
term  "  culture  "  in  its  technical  sense,  we  should  have  no  better 
equivalent  for  Bildung,  etc.,  than  "education"  and  "edu- 
cated," which  convey  too  much  of  the  association  of  school 
discipline  to  render  the  German  conception  in  its  entire  scope. 
At  all  events,  whatever  names  we  adopt,  there  is  such  social 
possession,  different  from  the  individual  state,  which  consists 
of  adaptation  in  thought  and  action  to  the  conditions  of  life. 

Again,  the  Germans  distinguish  between  "  culture "  and 
"civilization."  Thus  "civilization  is  the  ennobling,  the 
increased  control  of  the  elementary  human  impulses  by  society. 
Culture,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  control  of  nature  by  science 
and  art."  That  is,  civilization  is  one  side  of  what  we  call 
politics;  culture  is  our  whole  body  of  technical  equipment,  in 
the  way  of  knowledge,  process,  and  skill   for  subduing  and 

^°  Cf.  Tarde,  Les  transformations  du  pouvoir,  pp.  187-go  ;  Espinas,  Les 
origines  de  la  technologic. 


6o  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

employing  natural  resources,  and  it  does  not  necessarily  imply 
a  high  degree  of  socialization.^^ 

Now,  there  are  very  positive  theories  based  on  human  tech- 
nology as  the  one  determining  factor,  and  even  the  efficient 
cause,  of  all  social  development.  These  views  are  indicated 
when  Barth  speaks  of  the  "culture-history  idea."  The 
theorem  is  that  men's  ways  of  dealing  with  nature  have  been 
the  cause  of  their  spiritual  life,  and  of  their  social  and  political 
conditions.  Here  belong  at  first  glance  all  the  numerous 
waiters  who  have  divided  the  history  of  the  race  into  periods, 
according  to  the  kind  of  tools  or  implements  that  men  have 
used.^^  It  may  be  that  the  apparent  importance  of  the  method 
is  not  real  enough  to  make  their  view  quite  as  one-sided  in  this 
respect  as  the  classification  would  indicate,  but  the  symptoms 
should  be  regarded  as  danger  signals.  For  instance,  when 
Dubois-Reymond  divides  historic  times  into  three  periods  — 
namely  ( i )  that  of  the  building  arts,  bronze-casting,  and  stone- 
cutting;  (2)  that  of  the  three  inventions  of  the  compass, 
gunpowder,  and  printing;  (3)  that  of  machinery  moved  by 
steam  —  he  implies  the  one-sided  culture  view  that  men's 
inventions  are  the  sole  causes  of  their  social  condition.  We 
might  well  ask  of  this  view,  as  men  at  last  asked  of  their 
mythologies:  "If  Atlas  holds  up  the  skies,  who  holds  up 
Atlas?"  If  inventions  cause  social  conditions,  what  causes 
inventions?  Dubois-Reymond  finds  the  cause  of  the  fall  of 
Rome  in  the  fact  that  the  Romans  did  not  advance  beyond  the 
second  of  these  three  stages.  He  does  not  say  whether  the 
barbarians  conquered  Rome  because  they,  too.  had  not  advanced 
beyond  the  second  stage!  Of  the  culture-history  view  it  is 
sufficient  to  say,  with  Barth : 

The  naturalists,  technologists,  and  ethnologists  accordingly  start  off  on 
a   false  scent,   if  they  try  to   make  out   that   increase   in   the  amount  of 

"  Cf.  below,  ch.Tp.  24. 

'"  Cf.  Patten,  "  Theory  of  the  Social  Forces,"  Annals  of  the  American 
Academy,  January,  1896;  and  Ej'olution  of  English  Thought;  also  Ward, 
review  of  same,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  March,   1896. 


THE    HISTORY   OF    SOCIOLOGY  6i 

"  culture  possessed  "  is  the  mainspring  of  human  progress.  In  this  case, 
as  before,  we  find  that  all  historical  events,  both  progressive  and  retro- 
gressive, are  phenomena  of  volition."  The  will  is  not  moved,  however, 
by  endeavors  after  culture  alone ;  but  before  and  besides  these  endeavors 
are  all  sorts  of  other  forces.  Progress  of  culture  is  accordingly  only  one 
element,  and  not  the  only  one.  In  many  periods  it  constitutes,  indeed,  only 
a  feeble  factor  in  the  historical  movement.     (P.  261.) 

We  reach  similar  conclusions  in  turn  about  the  "  political," 
the  "ideological,"  and  the  "economic"  conceptions  of  history. 
Upon  this  last  view  a  single  paragraph  may  be  cited  from 
Barth : 

But  economics  thus  undertakes  much  more  than  it  can  accomplish. 
Economics  is  rather  in  peculiar  need  of  close  connection  with  the  history 
of  the  other  branches  of  social  life.  In  other  words,  economics  needs 
sociology.  Isolated  from  sociology,  economics  cannot  even  adequately 
determine  fundamental  conceptions.  Thus  Wagner  ^°  asks  the  question : 
"  Is  the  limitation  of  the  economic  motive,  that  is,  the  effort  to  get  a 
maximum  return  for  a  minimum  effort,  desirable  in  itself,  or  attainable 
if  desirable?"  The  answer  will,  without  question,  depend  upon  the 
assumed  purpose  of  social  life.  Economics  alone  is  incompetent  to  define 
this  purpose.  It  is  the  affair  of  a  comparative  historical  science  like 
sociology,  which  works  in  conjunction  with  philosophy,  that  is,  with  the 
science  of  the  highest  theoretical  and  practical  questions  of  humanity.  In 
his  Politics,  that  is,  in  his  theoretical  and  at  the  same  time  practical 
sociology,  Aristotle  claimed  that  happy  life  is  the  proper  purpose  of  the 
State,  which  to  him  was  identical  with  society.  His  notion  of  happy  life 
was  more  fully  defined  in  his  Ethics.  His  whole  politics  and  economics 
would  have  been  different  if  his  ethics  had  been  different.  So  each  modern 
system  of  economics  takes  form  according  to  its  assumed  idea  of  the  pur- 
pose of  social  life,  that  is,  according  to  the  sociology,  and,  in  the  final 
resort,  the  philosophy,  from  which  it  takes  its  departure.  The  isolation 
of  economics  has  had  as  a  consequence,  so  far  as  conceptions  of  history 
are  concerned,  only  confusion. 

Without  resorting  to  further  illustration  from  the  phi- 
losophy of  history,  we  may  repeat  that  these  snap- judgments 
about  social  laws,  with  all  the  dogmatism  reinforced  by  them, 
have  been  so  many  rule-of-thumb  attempts  to  do  the  thing 
which  the  sociologists  want  to  do  more  scientifically.     They 

"  Cf.  below,  chaps.  39  and  40. 

^  Grundlegung  der  politischen  Oekonomie,  3d  ed.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  9-12. 


62  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

want  to  formulate  precise  problems.  They  want  to  bring  valid 
methods  of  inquiry  to  bear  upon  the  problems.  They  want  to 
derive  knowledge  that  will  be  profitable  in  all  things  civic. 

At  the  same  time,  it  has  to  be  confessed  that,  as  was  hinted 
above,  most  of  the  sociology  up  to  date  has  repeated  in  its  way 
the  same  methodological  errors  which  the  philosophy  of  his- 
tory committed.  Yet,  although  the  sociologists  have  not  been 
forearmed  individually,  as  they  might  have  been,  with  lessons 
taught  by  the  mistakes  of  the  philosophers  of  history,  sociology 
is  gradually  assimilating  those  lessons.  Moreover,  sociology 
is  profiting  by  the  provincialisms  of  the  pioneer  sociologists. 
It  is  learning  to  find  the  element  of  truth  in  the  clues  upon 
which  different  men  have  attempted  to  build  sociology.  These 
premature  schemes  have  accordingly  served  their  purpose 
toward  perfecting  a  method  which,  in  its  turn,  will  ultimately 
organize  a  body  of  knowledge. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  HISTORY  OF  SOCIOLOGY  (continued) 

The  account  which  Barth  gives  of  "  the  sociologies  "  fails 
to  bring  into  focus  the  fact  noticed  at  the  close  of  the  previous 
chapter.  The  titles  which  he  gives  to  the  groups  into  which  he 
divides  the  sociologists  really  beg  very  important  questions. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  philosophers  of  history,  use  of  Earth's 
groupings,  however,  will  serve  to  bring  out  the  necessary  facts 
about  gradual  perceptions  of  what  sociological  problems 
involve.  This  continued  reference  to  Barth  is  incidentally  for 
the  purpose  of  correcting  a  radical  error  in  his  exposition.  It 
prevents  comment  upon  some  very  important  writers,  but  the 
main  point  at  present  is  to  show  that  Barth  misconceives  the 
facts  when  he  schedules  a  series  of  "sociologies."  Super- 
ficially, he  is  correct ;  but  closer  inspection  shows  that,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  the  sociologists  have  been  working 
upon  one  sociology.  Exaggeration  of  some  single  factor  in 
association,  or  of  some  single  feature  in  method,  does  not  con- 
stitute a  special  sociology.  It  contributes,  directly  or  indirectly, 
positively  or  negatively,  to  the  development  of  the  one  general 
philosophy. 

Recapitulating  our  argument,  we  may  say  that  all  the  stu- 
dents of  society  who  properly  belong  in  the  gild  of  philoso- 
phers of  history  have  virtually  undertaken  to  interpret  human 
life  as  too  exclusively  a  function  of  some  single  influence, 
about  which  they  have  formed  a  priori  conceptions.  They 
have  done  their  best  to  arrange  all  the  knowledge  about  human 
life  within  their  reach  so  that  it  would  tally  with  this  hy- 
pothesis of  prevailing  influence.  Their  method  has  exhibited 
only  a  minimum  of  positiveness  or  objectivity.  In  spite  of  this 
long-distance  communication  with  reality,  the  philosophers  of 
history  have  bequeathed  to  present  social  science  a  perception 

63 


64  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

of  a  complex  problem,  which  may  be  stated  in  this  form : 
"  Given  the  fact  of  these  influences,  which  are  evidently  real, 
in  some  degree  of  force,  in  human  affairs;  to  discover  when, 
how,  in  what  proportions,  under  what  conditions,  and  with 
what  additional  influences  these  factors  operate  in  human 
associations." 

While  the  philosophers  of  history  have  been  shaping  study 
of  society  in  such  fashion  that  students  of  society  must 
inevitably  propose  their  problem  at  last  in  the  above  form, 
dissatisfaction  with  the  method  of  gaining  knowledge  has  been 
growing.  A  few  men  have  been  moved  by  a  feeling,  rather 
than  by  a  clear  perception,  that  there  has  been  defective  realism 
or  objectivity  in  the  treatment  of  human  experience.  They 
have  virtually  said  to  themselves :  "  Let  us  plan  methods  of 
research  by  which  we  may  know  actual  facts,  to  take  the  place 
of  the  irresponsible  fancies  with  which  social  philosophers  have 
been  content  to  speculate."  One  outcome  of  this  movement 
is  modern  sociology. 

The  implication  is  not  intended  that  the  sociologists  have 
invariably  been  more  scientific  than  the  philosophers  of  his- 
tory. On  the  contrary,  they  have  been,  as  a  rule,  equally  and 
sometimes  more  unscientific.  They  have,  however,  undertaken 
more  deliberate  attempts  to  construct  plans  of  research  that 
would  conform  to  the  principles  of  exact  science.  The  conse- 
quence is  that,  while  sociology  up  to  date  can  show  compara- 
tively little  in  the  way  of  absolutely  new  knowledge  about 
society,  it  has  accumulated  a  wealth  of  perception  about  the 
value  of  different  portions  of  knowledge,  and  about  ways  in 
which  knowledge  of  society  must  be  tested  and  organized. 
Although  these  perceptions  are  not  yet  co-ordinated  in  any 
system  which  is  generally  accepted  by  sociologists,  there  is  an 
unformulated  consensus  about  standards  of  objectivity  and 
correlation  which  is  steadily  reducing  sociological  speculation 
to  the  soberness  of  observational   and  experimental   science.^ 

'"  Unfortunately,  the  relation  of  facts  is  always  less  simple  than  we  think; 
the  demand  of  our  intellect  for  unity  is  often  a  little  too  strong,  especially  in 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  65 

Each  of  the  chief  types  of  sociological  theory  has  contrib- 
uted something  to  this  result.  Perhaps  the  largest  contribu- 
tions have  been  not  direct,  but  indirect.  There  may  be  close 
parallelism  here  between  the  merit  of  the  sociologists  and  that 
of  the  philosophers  of  history.  The  share  of  the  sociologists 
in  the  result  may  be  quite  different  from  the  spirit  of  their 
own  premises.  We  may  trace,  however,  in  the  progress  of 
sociological  theory,  first,  a  reaction  and  a  protest  against 
speculative  social  philosophy;  second,  a  struggle  by  men  still 
wearing  the  shackles  of  speculative  tradition  to  perfect  a  posi- 
tive method ;  third,  attrition  among  quasi-positive  methods. 
Reciprocal  criticism  of  schools  and  programs  of  sociological 
inquiry  has  been  the  order  of  the  day,  and  unfortunately  the 
chief  employment,  of  the  sociologists.  Out  of  all  this  prelimi- 
nary maneuvering  a  sociological  method  is  emerging.  It  is  an 
organization  of  ways  of  knowing  society  as  it  is.  This  is  a 
substitute  for  the  ways  in  which  people  thought  about  society 
without  knowing  it  as  it  is.  We  shall  comment  upon  certain 
typical  proposals  of  sociological  method,  for  the  purpose  of 
illustrating  this  last  proposition. 

A.  The  importance  of  classification. —  Disregarding  earlier 
prophets  of  scientific  method,  we  may  consider  Comte  ( 1 798- 
1857).  It  is  worth  while  to  emphasize  the  contribution  of 
Comte  to  the  method  of  sociology,  not  because  his  method  in 
his  own  hands  accomplished  much  that  is  in  itself  memorable, 
but  because  he  made  the  inevitable  problem  more  obvious. 
He  defined  it  more  precisely  than  it  had  been  defined  before, 

the  realm  of  social  science.  Hasty  conclusions  are  still  the  order  of  the  day. 
One  assumes  something,  not  because  it  is  so,  because  one  has  actually  so 
observed  it,  but  because  it  would  agree  so  finely  with  something  else.  This  is 
all  very  unscientific,  but  it  suits  our  best  thinkers  not  seldom.  Really,  we  pro- 
ceed still  from  the  theory  and  seek  facts  merely  for  illustration.  If  one  does 
otherwise,  starts  from  the  facts  and  goes  no  farther  than  they  permit,  then 
people  are  astonished  that  his  result  is  not  so  beautifully  rounded  off,  not  so 
faultless,  as  their  own  fancies.  That  the  latter,  even  if  ever  so  consistent, 
harmonious,  complete,  are  yet  absolutely  worthless  —  that  does  not  appear  to 
such  people."    (Steinmetz,   Zeitschrift   fiir   Sociahvissenschaft,   August,    1898.) 


66  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

His  point  of  departure  is  indicated  in  the  following  proposi- 
tions : 

It  cannot  be  necessary  to  prove  to  anybody  who  reads  this  work  that 
ideas  govern  the  vvorld  or  throw  it  into  chaos ;  in  other  words,  that  all 
social  mechanism  rests  upon  opinion.  The  great  political  and  moral  crises 
that  societies  are  now  undergoing  are  shown  by  a  rigid  analysis  to  arise 
out  of  intellectual  anarchy.  While  stability  in  fundamental  maxims  is  the 
first  condition  of  genuine  social  order,  we  are  suffering  from  an  utter  dis- 
agreement which  may  be  called  universal.  Till  a  certain  number  of  general 
ideas  can  be  acknowledged  as  a  rallying-point  of  social  doctrine,  the  nations 
will  remain  in  a  revolutionary  state,  whatever  palliatives  may  be  devised; 
and  their  institutions  can  only  be  provisional.  But  whenever  the  necessary 
agreement  on  first  principles  can  be  obtained,  appropriate  institutions  will 
issue  from  them  without  shock  or  resistance;  for  the  causes  of  disorder 
will  have  been  arrested  by  the  mere  fact  of  the  agreement.  It  is  in  this 
direction  that  those  must  look  who  desire  a  natural  and  regular,  a  normal 
state  of  society.^ 

Accordingly,  Comte  attempted  to  classify  the  sciences.  His 
fundamental  principle  was  described  as  follows : 

We  may  derive  encouragement  from  the  examples  set  by  recent 
botanists  and  zoologists,  whose  philosophical  labors  have  exhibited  the  true 
principle  of  classification,  namely,  that  the  classification  must  proceed  from 
the  study  of  the  things  to  be  classified,  and  must  by  no  means  be  deter- 
mined by  a  priori  considerations.  The  real  affinities  and  natural  con- 
nections presented  by  objects  being  allowed  to  determine  their  order,  the 
classification  itself  becomes  the  expression  of  the  most  general  fact.' 

Upon  this  basis  Comte  classified  the  sciences  in  his  well- 
known  hierarchy :  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry,  physiolog}^ 
and  social  physics;  mathematics  being  treated  as  antecedent 
to  all  the  sciences. 

Comte's  ideas  of  method  are  further  illustrated  by  his  use 
of  the  distinction  between  statical  and  dynamical  relations. 
On  this  point  he  says : 

This  division,  necessary  for  purposes  of  exploration,  must  not  be 
stretched  beyond  that  use.  The  distinction  becomes  weaker  with  the 
advance  of  science.  We  shall  see  that,  when  the  science  of  social  physics 
is  fully  constituted,  this  division  will  remain,  for  analytical  purposes,  but 
not  as  a  real  separation  of  the  science  into  two  parts.     The  distinction  is 

'Positive  Philosophy,  Introduction.  'Ibid.,  Book  I,  chap.  2. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  67 

not  between  two  classes  of  facts,  but  between  two  aspects  of  a  theory.  It 
corresponds  with  the  double  conception  of  order  and  progress ;  for  order 
consists  in  a  perfect  harmony  among  the  conditions  of  social  existence; 
and  progress  consists  in  social  development ;  and  the  conditions  in  the  one 
case  and  the  laws  of  movement  in  the  other  constitute  the  statics  and 
dynamics  of  social  physics. 

Further  peculiarities  of  Comte's  method  are  alkided  to  by 
Barth  as  follows : 

We  find  in  Comte's  proposal  an  antithesis,  namely,  on  the  one  hand 
he  insists  that  the  social  series  is  a  continuation  of  the  animal  series,  but 
it  is  impossible  to  deduce  the  one  from  the  other.  The  development  of 
society  cannot  be  traced  to  the  peculiarities  of  individuals.  Sociology 
cannot  be  derived  from  physiology,  however  important  biology  may  be  in 
laying  foundations  for  sociology.  Biology  furnishes  only  certain  general 
notions ;  for  example,  that  of  evolution,  the  specialization  of  organs, 
solidarity,  etc.  On  the  other  hand,  the  positive  law  of  evolution,  according 
to  Comte,  is  that  of  the  three  states,  namely,  the  theological,  the  meta- 
physical, and  the  positive.  This,  however,  is  not  a  biological,  but  an 
epistemological  principle. 

In  view  of  this  antinomy  in  Comte,  the  fact  of  value  for 
our  purpose  is  not  the  intrinsic  merit  or  demerit  of  his  theory 
of  the  three  states.  That  theorem  is  not  close  enough  to 
reality  to  deserve  any  attention  except  as  a  curious  conceit 
long  since  discredited  at  the  author's  valuation.  The  impor- 
tant point  is  that  the  conceit,  although  incorrect,  posited  a 
mental,  not  a  physical,  principle,  as  the  clue  to  the  social  mys- 
tery. Comte  had  a  rigidly  mechanical  conception  of  the  forms 
in  which  the  social  principle  works,  but  he  still  had  a  pre- 
sentiment that  the  principle  itself  is  not  mechanical,  Comte  is 
therefore  not  a  successful  monist.  In  his  scheme  these  two 
elements  are  left  antithetical,  as  must  always  be  the  case  so 
long  as  we  confine  ourselves  to  descriptions  of  phenomena. 
The  physical  and  the  spiritual  aspects  of  phenomena  may  be 
assumed  to  be  manifestations  of  one  underlying  reality,  but  no 
one  has  succeeded  in  making  that  unity  visible.^ 

It  is  accordingly  not  surprising  that  the  followers  of 
Comte  took  two  divergent  courses.    Some  of  them  pursued  the 

*  Cf.  below,  pp.  78-82. 


68  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

spiritual  clue;  others  worked  in  accordance  with  the  mechani- 
cal or  physiological  conception.  It  would  have  been  very 
natural  if  those  followers  of  Comte  who  were  most  impressed 
by  the  spiritual  conception  in  his  doctrine  had  emphasized  the 
idea  which  superficial  readers  have  always  fixed  upon  as  the 
most  important  part  of  his  teaching,  namely,  his  division  of 
human  experience  into  the  three  stages.  With  more  correct 
insight,  or  instinct,  however,  the  tendency  which  we  have  now 
to  notice  followed  rather  the  methodological  clue  in  the  doc- 
trine than  its  material  content. 

We  have  noticed  how  important  in  Comte's  mind  was  the 
principle  of  classification.  Beginning  with  the  simpler  sciences, 
and  continuing  through  the  subject-matter  of  all  science, 
including  sociology,  Comte  insisted  upon  classification  dictated 
by  the  peculiarities  of  the  things  classified.  Thus  classification 
with  Comte  is  itself  science.  To  know  enough  about  objects 
or  facts  to  arrange  them  in  scientific  classes,  we  must  obviously 
have  enough  knowledge  of  their  essential  peculiarities  to  mark 
a  good  degree  of  scientific  progress.  Conversely,  an  attempt 
in  the  Comtean  spirit  to  classify  the  subject-matter  chosen  as  a 
scientific  field  amounts  to  a  pledge  that  the  things  to  be  classi- 
fied will  be  duly  investigated,  so  that  their  likenesses  and 
differences  may  be  known.  For  this  reason  those  writers 
whom  Barth  calls  the  "classifying  sociologists"  deserve  sin- 
cere respect,  whether  the  categories  which  they  have  proposed 
prove  permanent  or  not.  Their  attempt  has  been  to  discover 
those  essential  attributes  of  social  facts  which  constitute  marks 
of  likeness  or  unlikeness.  So  far  as  it  goes,  this  search  for  the 
signs  of  similarity  and  dissimilarity  is  true  science,  provided  it 
observes  scientific  principles  in  deciding  what  are  the  qualities 
attributed  to  the  subject-matter  in  question.  It  is  not  an 
invention  of  the  sociologists.  It  is  merely  a  sign  on  the  part  of 
the  sociologists  that  they  have  so  far  heeded  the  lessons  taught 
by  the  maturer  sciences. 

Among  the  followers  of  Comte  there  has  not  been   due 
observance  of  the  limitation  just  suggested.    Descriptive  analy- 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  69 

sis  is  logically  presupposed  as  a  condition  of  validity  in  genetic 
classification,  or  in  causal  analysis,  which  is  another  aspect  of 
the  same  thing.  Social  facts  and  forces  have  been  arranged  in 
classes  by  sociologists  whose  haste  to  reach  genetic  classifica- 
tion has  made  them  neglect  necessary  descriptive  analysis. 
This  criticism  may  be  applied  at  once  to  De  Greef.  His  famous 
schedule  of  social  phenomena  involves  a  thesis  about  the  order 
in  which  those  phenomena  emerge.^  That  hypothesis  turns  the 
schedule,  to  a  certain  extent  at  least,  into  a  genetic  classifica- 
tion. In  that  character  De  Greef's  proposition  is  more  than 
questionable.  As  a  descriptive  analysis  for  certain  purposes  it 
has  not  been  excelled.  We  may  then  at  once  set  down  to  the 
credit  of  the  sociologists  of  this  group  a  commendable  begin- 
ning of  the  process  of  grouping  like  social  facts.  This  is  a 
necessary  preliminary  in  all  science.  The  "  classifying  soci- 
ologists "  have  been  criticised,  not  so  much  because  they  did 
not  do  their  part  well,  as  because  the  critics  did  not  see  that  this 
part  was  worth  doing  at  all.  Such  judgments  condemn  the 
critics  rather  than  the  criticised.^  Classification  is  not  the 
whole  of  science,  but  it  is  an  essential  stage  in  the  scientific 
process.  The  men  who  belittle  it  tend  to  disregard  the  author- 
ity of  facts,  and  to  claim  scientific  authority  for  their  gener- 
alizations independent  of  facts. 

The  processes  that  have  given  the  group-name  to  the 
"classifying  sociologists"  have  sometimes  been  called  col- 
lectively "  descriptive  sociology."  This  term  stands  for  all 
that  is  involved  in  arranging  the  material  facts  in  classified 
order,  without  attempt  to  enter  upon  the  next  step,  namely, 
interpretation.  Whether  this  designation  is  to  be  permanent, 
experience  alone  can  decide. 

A  passage  from  Barth  is  pertinent  at  this  point : 

According  to  Comte,  sciences  must  be  parallel  with  things.     When  we 

^Introduction  a  la  sociologie,  Vol.  I,  p.  217. 

•  E.  g.,  Giddings,  Principles  of  Sociology,  p.  12.  Professor  Giddings  speaks 
of  such  work  as  "  constructing  a  doctrine  by  inventory  instead  of  by  abstrac- 
tion." Of  course,  there  could  be  no  valid  abstraction  in  default  of  an  inven- 
tory of  the  items   from   which   the  abstraction   is   drawn. 


70  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

arrange  the  latter  according  to  their  decreasing  generality,  and  their 
increasing  complexity,  we  have  at  the  same  time  their  actual  correlation. 
Just  so,  when  we  arrange  the  sciences  according  to  the  same  principle,  we 
have  the  sequence  of  their  origin,  that  is,  their  history.  Since  the  same 
logical  motives  which  operate  in  humanity  as  a  whole  are  in  force  also  in 
the  individual,  he  not  only  may  but  must  repeat  in  himself  the  develop- 
mental course  through  which  the  knowledge  of  the  race  has  passed.  Other- 
wise his  development  is  incomplete.  He  must,  in  other  words,  recapitulate 
in  himself  the  history  of  science.  Comte's  classification  of  the  sciences, 
accordingly,  purports  to  be,  not  merely  descriptive,  but  at  the  same  time 
genetic  and  reconstructive.' 

The  idea  was  close  at  hand  that  the  same  should  be  done 
for  society  which  Comte  tried  to  do  for  the  world  at  large  and 
for  general  science.  A  subdivision  of  society,  from  its  most 
general  to  its  most  complicated  phenomena,  was  attempted  by 
Comte  only  incidentally  and  imperfectly.  Accordingly,  he 
produced  no  classifications  in  sociology  that  satisfy  his  pro- 
gram of  scientific  division.  If  this  omission  could  be  supplied, 
it  would  mean,  according  to  the  presuppositions  of  the 
Comtean  system,  that  we  should  have,  not  merely  a  division 
of  social  phenomena,  but  also  the  way  in  which  society  came 
into  being  and  grew  to  its  present  state. 

This  idea  is  the  clue  to  the  significance  of  those  "classifying 
sociologists,"  as  they  are  named  by  Barth,  who  have  attempted 
to  complete  Comte's  work.  The  best  representative  of  this 
group  is  De  Greef.*  His  methodological  merit  in  applying 
and  developing  the  Comtean  idea  consists  primarily  in  carrying 
the  attempt  to  classify  phenomena,  and  consequently  sciences, 
into  the  societary  realm.  Some  of  his  most  characteristic  work 
has  been  in  connection  with  his  proposal  of  a  hierarchy  of 
societary    phenomena    and    of    societary    science.       Selecting 

'On  Comte's  hierarchy  ride  Spencer,  The  Genesis  of  Science  (1854), 
reprinted  in  Essays,  Vol.  I,  p.  116.  Also  Vol.  Ill,  p.  13,  and  Recent  Discussions, 
p.   124;    also  Fiske,  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Vol.  I,  pp.   185,  219,  et  passim. 

'Introduction  a  la  sociologie  (2  vols.,  Paris,  1886-89),  and  Vol.  Ill,  a 
translation  of  which  began  to  appear  in  the  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 
Vol.  VIII,  p.  478;  Les  lois  sociologiques  (Paris,  1893);  Le  transformisme 
social  (Paris,  1895)  ;  L' evolution  des  croyances  et  dcs  doctrines  politiques 
(Paris,    i8';s). 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  71 

De  Greef  as  a  representative  of  the  classifying-  tendency, 
we  appropriate  Earth's  account  with  certain  variations.® 
De  Greef's  idea  is  that  classification  of  the  sciences  has  more 
than  a  merely  subjective  significance.  If  it  is  successfully 
objective,  it  reproduces  the  real  interdependencies  of  things  in 
particular  and  of  reality  as  a  whole.  The  universal  is  the  least 
dependent.  That  which  rests  upon  it  is  the  more  dependent, 
the  more  special  it  becomes.  It  is  in  the  same  degree  more 
modifiable.  For  teleological  theory  this  consideration  is  car- 
dinal. It  is  useless  to  apply  effort  to  the  unchangeable.  Effort 
is  practical  in  proportion  as  it  is  applied  to  the  changeable. 
Hence  the  desirability  of  finding  out  the  degrees  of  generality 
among  societary  phenomena  as  a  basis  for  programs  of 
ameliorative  action. 

De  Greef  regards  inattention  to  the  foregoing  principle  as 
the  reason  for  poverty  of  results  in  sociology  since  Comte. 
Society  is  not  simplicity,  but  extreme  complexity.  Comte 
wanted  society  to  be  regarded  as  a  whole.  He  wanted  explana- 
tion of  its  parts  to  proceed  from  explanation  of  the  whole, 
instead  of  procedure  from  the  parts  to  the  whole.  He  did  not 
encourage  study  of  the  isolated  parts.  Referring  possibly  to 
Comte's  fourfold  division  of  societary  evolution  in  the  modern 
world  —  namely,  the  industrial,  the  aesthetic,  the  scientific,  and 
the  philosophicaP*^  —  De  Greef  seems  to  have  attributed  to 
Comte  a  classification  which  cannot  be  found  in  the  Positive 
Philosophy.  At  all  events,  he  argues  that  Comte  did  not  draw 
the  obvious  practical  conclusions  from  subdivisions  of  the 
phenomena.'^  De  Greef's  motive,  then,  is  desire  to  furnish  a 
scale  of  societary  activity  that  will  show  decreasing  orders  of 
generality,  increasing  orders  of  complexity,  and  consequently 
relative  susceptibility  of  artificial  modification. 

De  Greef's  point  of  departure  is  selection  of  a  psychical 
factor  —  contract  —  to    mark    the   division    line   between    the 

*  Pp.  67  ff.     Cf.  conspectus  of  De  Greef's  scheme,  below,  p.  235. 
^"Positive  Philosophy,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  51,  53,  54,  56. 
"  Introduction,  Vol.  I,  p.  228. 


72  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

physical  and  the  social.  Upon  the  basis  of  conclusion  that 
Spencer's  criteria  of  distinction  between  the  physical  and  the 
social  are  merely  quantitative  and  mechanical  instead  of  quali- 
tative (i.  e.,  the  greater  distance  between  the  elements  and  the 
distribution  of  consciousness  among  the  elements),  De  Greef 
claims  that  neither  Comte  nor  Spencer  has  adduced  adequate 
reasons  for  separating  sociology  from  biology.^^  Throughout 
De  Greef's  work  the  differentiating  factor  of  human  volition 
is  insisted  upon  as  marking  a  separate  body  of  phenomena. 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  practically  no  controversy  with 
Barth  as  to  the  significance  of  the  classifying  tendency.  It  is, 
however,  a  mistake  to  seek  in  such  a  writer  as  De  Greef 
important  contributions  to  knowledge  of  the  concrete.  As  in 
the  case  of  the  one-sided  views  of  history,  w^e  get  some 
methodological  details  from  inspection  of  the  method  of 
approaching  reality  represented  by  De  Greef.  His  classifica- 
tion is  in  essence  a  series  of  theses  to  be  tested.  In  the  classi- 
fication the  elements  of  social  activity  are  made  more  distinct 
than  in  any  previous  classification.  His  claim  with  reference 
to  the  hierarchical  order  of  the  phenomena  so  arranged  must 
stand  or  fall  as  a  result  of  specific  investigation  of  the  activities 
and  subactivities  distinguished  in  the  schedule.  Sociological 
method  is  changed,  however,  by  this  scheme  of  categories, 
from  a  confused  dumping  together  of  miscellaneous  informa- 
tion, as  called  for  by  Spencer's  famous  catalogue  of  what  his- 
tory should  teach, ^^  to  an  orderly  arrangement  of  phenomena 
according  to  scientific  principles  of  classification.  This  is  not 
to  assert  that  De  Greef's  classification  is  final.  It  has,  however, 
admirably  served  the  purpose  of  tentative  analysis  of  social 
activities,  while  criticism  of  the  characteristics  of  the  activities 
is  proceeding. 

Barth  discusses  under  the  present  subtitle  Lacombe^"*  and 

"Introduction,  Vol.  I,  pp.  19-23. 

"Vide  below,  pp.  109,  no. 

"Df  I'histoirc  considcrce  commc  science  (Paris,    1894), 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  73 

Wagner.^^  Neither  of  these  writers  has  added  anything-  of 
vakie  to  the  portion  of  methodology  with  which  we  are  con- 
cerned, and  we  may  allow  De  Greef  to  stand  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  classifying  tendency. 

Recurring  to  the  claim  made  above,^^  and  in  accordance 
with  our  argument  upon  the  different  philosophies  of  history, 
we  repeat  our  conclusion  with  reference  to  the  different 
emphases  in  sociological  methodology,  viz. :  Each  has  con- 
tributed something  to  be  worked  in  some  way  or  other  into  the 
final  sociology.  It  is  not  strictly  accurate  to  speak  of  a  "  classi- 
fying sociology."  Certain  men  have  won  recognition  for  the 
fact  that  classification  is  a  necessary  element  in  scientific 
method,  but  classification  was  not  beginning  and  end  of  their 
conception  of  sociology.  It  was  one  of  the  means  of  develop- 
ing a  sociology.  It  would  be  as  fair  to  describe  the  work  of 
succeeding  generations  of  farmers  in  this  country  by  the 
phrases ;  "  the  tree-felling  agriculture,"  "  the  stump-pulling 
agriculture,"  "  the  plowing  agriculture,"  "  the  rock-picking 
agriculture,"  and  "the  rotation-of-crops  agriculture."  The 
men  who  had  to  give  most  of  their  strength  to  the  different 
partial  processes  respectively  may  have  had  all  the  other  pro- 
cesses as  clearly  in  mind  as  though  circumstances  permitted 
their  use.  The  feller  of  trees  functioned  with  reference  to 
rotation  of  crops  just  as  truly  as  the  men  who  lived  to  practice 
it.  So  of  the  men  who  emphasized  the  need  of  sociological 
classification. 

Classification  is  an  arrangement  of  abstractions  around 
selected  centers  of  interest.  No  single  classification  can  ever 
visualize  the  social  reality,  because  that  reality  presents  as 
many  aspects  as  there  are  subjective  centers  of  attention.  The 
object  cut  up  into  abstractions  has  to  be  represented  by  com- 
bination of  all  the  classifications  which  our  alternative  centers 
of  interest  incite  us  to  make.  These  alternative  classifications 
cannot  be  put  together  in  any  hierarchical  order,  if  faithfulness 

"  Gnmdlegung  der  politischen  Oekonomie,  3d  ed.   (Leipzig,   1892). 
"  Pp.  63-65. 


74  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

to  reality  is  to  be  maintained.  To  visualize  the  social  reality, 
it  is  necessary  to  learn  how  to  think  these  classifications  as 
they  shoot  through  and  through  each  other  in  objective  fact, 
forming  the  most  complicated  plexus  ever  observed.  If  we  try 
to  symbolize  or  formulate  this  plexus  in  categories  appropriate 
to  any  lesser  order  of  complexity,  we  shall  either  give  up  in 
despair,  or  we  shall  rest  satisfied  with  falsification  of  the 
reality, 

B.  The  use  of  biological  figures. —  No  scientific  movement 
has  been  more  misunderstood  by  both  friends  and  foes  than 
that  phase  of  sociological  thought  to  which  the  present  title 
applies.  Barth  exemplifies  radical  misconception  of  the  situa- 
tion in  using  the  title  '^  the  biological  sociology."  The  essential 
idea  which  has  supplied  impulse  and  suggestion  to  all  the 
investigators  in  this  group  is  that  everything  somehow  hangs 
together  with  everything  else;  as  the  French  phrase  it :  "  Tout 
se  tient  dans  ce  monde  ici-bas."  It  is  further  assumed  that 
science  is  incomplete  until  it  includes  discovery  of  the  forms 
and  principles  of  this  coherence.  In  other  words,  the  emphasis 
here  is  upon  the  organic  concept,  not  upon  biological  analogies 
in  formulating  the  concept.  Not  merely  in  sociology,  hut  in 
every  department  of  knowledge,  the  organic  concept  is  the 
most  distinctive  modern  note.  It  has  been  a  serious  oversight 
and  blunder  to  confound  the  organic  concept  with  the  non- 
essential device  of  employing  biological  analogies  when  using 
the  concept.  Accidents  in  connection  with  this  merely  technical 
detail  have  been  magnified  by  some  thinkers  into  essentials, 
and  misrepresented  by  others  as  the  substance  of  the  subject- 
matter  in  question.  At  best  they  are  means  of  finding  out  and 
reporting  a  certain  portion  of  reality. 

The  most  intimate  and  complex  and  constructive  coherence 
of  elements  that  we  discover,  previous  to  our  study  of  society, 
is  the  coworking  of  part  with  part  in  vital  phenomena.  About 
a  generation  ago,  men  who  wanted  to  understand  the  social 
reality  more  precisely  began  to  make  systematic  use  of  ascer- 
tained vital  relationships  as  provisional  symbols  of  societary 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  75 

relationships.  In  general,  it  has  been  true  from  the  beginning 
that  the  so-called  biological  sociology  has  not  been  biological 
at  all,  except  in  its  figurative  modes  of  expression.  Men  have 
detected  apparent  analogies  between  better  understood  vital 
processes  and  less  understood  societary  processes.^ ^  They  have 
said  virtually :  "  So  long  as  terms  of  these  vital  processes  put 
us  in  the  way  of  approaching  more  truth  about  societary  pro- 
cesses, let  us  use  them  as  means  to  that  end."  Following  this 
clue,  descriptive  analyses  and  many  interpretations  of  social 
relations  have  been  worked  out  in  biological  terms. 

It  is  not  absolutely  certain  that  any  single  writer  who 
has  been  taken  seriously  by  the  sociologists  has  ever  been  a 
"  biological  sociologist "  in  any  other  sense  than  the  foregoing. 
There  have  been  many  lapses  into  linguistic  usage  that  prima 
facie  meant  a  very  fantastic  literalism.  In  general,  however, 
the  use  of  biological  figures  has  amounted  to  about  this : 
There  are  functional  relationships  between  men  in  association 
that  are  analogous  with  functional  relationships  between  parts 
of  living  bodies.  No  analogies  seem  to  be  closer,  on  the  whole, 
to  the  societary  facts  than  those  in  biological  facts.  We  will, 
therefore,  follow  out  these  clues.  We  will  discover  all  the 
biological  analogies  we  can.  We  will  test  the  closeness  of  the 
similarities.  We  will  make  them  divulge  all  the  truth  possible 
about  the  literal  terms  of  social  relationships.  We  will  report 
these  discoveries  in  biological  metaphor,  if  no  better  medium 
of  expression  is  available.  We  will  get  nearer  to  the  truth 
with  some  other  medium  of  expression,  whenever  we  can 
invent  it.  With  occasional  exceptions,  the  objections  that  have 
been  urged  to  this  use  of  organic  analogies  may  be  charged 
chiefly  to  a  mental  condition  which  Dr.  George  Dana  Boardman 
aptly  termed  "defect  of  the  analogical  imagination."^^ 

"  The  converse  was  for  a  time  the  case.  Vide  Annals  of  the  American 
Academy,  March,  1895,  p.  745.  Cf.  Small  and  Vincent,  Introduction  to  the 
Study  of  Society,  pp.  87-96  ;  Small,  in  a  notice  of  Schaffle,  American  Journal 
of  Sociology,  Vol.  II,  p.  311  ;    ibid..  Vol.  IV,  p.  411  ;    ibid..  Vol.  V,  p.  276. 

"  Cf.  Spencer,  "  The  Social  Organism,"  Westminster  Review,  January, 
i860,  and  revised  in  his  Essays;    also  Ward,  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 


76  GENERAL   SOQOLOGY 

In  order  to  deal  properly  with  the  actual  use  which  has 
been  made  of  biological  analogies,  it  would  be  necessary  to  dis- 
cuss at  length  Lilienfeld,  Spencer,  and  Schaffle.  This  would 
take  us  too  far  afield.  For  our  present  purpose  we  may 
assume  such  a  review.  After  all  the  controversy  about  the 
organic  concept,  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter  is  that  knowledge 
of  human  associations  involves  knowledge  of  the  most  com- 
plex interdependence  of  function  that  has  been  discovered  in 
the  whole  realm  of  reality.  Precise  formulas  of  the  inter- 
relations of  functions  among  associated  men  are  mostly 
desiderata  for  future  social  science  to  supply.  Meanwhile, 
approximate  statements  of  social  relationships  must  employ 
the  best  available  means  of  expression.  At  our  present  stage 
of  knowledge,  our  insights  into  the  social  mystery  express 
themselves  most  adequately,  in  certain  of  their  phases  at  least, 
in  biological  figures.  In  other  words,  there  are  vast  reaches  of 
societary  fact  our  present  apprehension  of  which  falls  into 
symbolical  expression  in  biological  forms  more  conveniently 
and  satisfactorily  than  into  any  alternative  mode  of  expression. 
This  proposition  recognizes  the  provisional  and  inexact  char- 
acter of  such  expression.  The  use  of  biological  terms  to 
symbolize  societary  relationships  is,  therefore,  desirable  only 
so  long  and  so  far  as  they  are  on  the  whole  better  vehicles  of 
expression  than  any  available  substitutes.  Beyond  that  the 
device  is  a  snare  and  a  delusion. 

For  these  reasons,  we  repeat,  the  title  "  biological  soci- 
ology" is  a  misnomer.^^  There  is  a  method  of  presenting 
problems  and  of  stating  results  in  sociology  by  means  of  bio- 
logical terms.  That  method  does  not  make,  nor  wish  to  make, 
the    subject-matter    biological,    any    more    than    the    graphic 

Vol.  I,  p.  317,  and  Vol.  Ill,  p.  260.  For  the  most  recent  discussion  of  the 
biological  method  of  expression  Z'ide  Annalcs  de  I'Institut  international  de 
Sociologie,  Vols.  IV  and  V. 

"  In  his  paper,  "  The  Failure  of  Biologic  Sociology,"  Annals  of  American 
Academy,  May,  1894,  Professor  Patten  has  disposed  of  certain  real  errors,  but 
his  blows  are  delivered  chiefly  at  straw  men,  so  far  as  the  epithet  "  biologic  " 
is  concerned. 


THE   HISTORY    OF   SOCIOLOGY  ^^ 

method  of  presenting  statistics  makes  the  subject-matter 
geographical. 

To  be  sure,  Lilienfeld,  Spencer,  Schaffle,  and  a  numerous 
host  who  have  Hghted  their  tapers  from  these  flames,  have 
sometimes  appeared  to  carry  symboHsm  into  reahsm.  They 
have  sometimes  seemed  to  treat  society  as  though  it  were  the 
last  term  in  the  zoological  series.  Whatever  faults  of  this  sort 
may  be  on  record,  they  do  not  lie  along  the  trunk  line  of 
advance  from  Comte  to  securely  scientific  sociology.  They  are 
excursions  which  call  for  very  little  attention  at  present. 

Apart  from  the  men,  if  there  are  any  such,  who  actually 
think  that  society  is  a  big  animal,  the  investigators  who  have 
use  for  biological  figures  in  connection  with  societary  relation- 
ships no  more  convert  their  subject-matter  into  biology,  by 
using  organic  metaphors,  than  use  of  Arabic  notation  in 
astronomy  would  convert  the  subject-matter  into  Semitic 
philology.  The  term  "biological  sociology"  implies  what  is 
not  and  never  has  been  true  of  that  which  is  most  essential  in 
the  method  to  which  it  applies.  The  assumption  of  the  critics 
is  that,  behind  all  use  of  the  biological  terms,  there  is  a  sup- 
position contrary  to  fact;  namely,  that  society  is  a  zoological 
species.  The  truth  is  that  the  method  thus  misunderstood 
does  not  assume  that  human  associations  are  anything  at  all 
except  a  plexus  of  relationships  formed  by  the  mingling 
together  of  many  human  beings.^^ 

The  method  starts,  however,  with  the  perception  that  has 
coined  the  sociological  axiom :  "  All  men  are  functions  of 
each  other."  Setting  out  with  this  perception  of  the  com- 
plexity of  associations  between  men,  these  particular  soci- 
ologists, as  we  have  said  above,  cast  about  for  relationships  of 

*"  The  men  who  have  made  most  use  of  biological  terms  in  sociology 
might  without  strain  or  shock  accept  the  starting-point  and  the  methodological 
policy  implied  in  Tonnies'  formula :  "  .  .  .  .  for  a  working  hypothesis  we 
may  say  that  society  is  a  crowd  of  individuals  scattered  over  a  particular  terri- 
tory, who  do  business  peaceably  with  each  other,  and  enforce  the  observation 
of  certain  rules  of  conduct  "  ("  Zur  Einleitung  in  die  Sociologie,"  Zeitschrift 
fiir  Philosophie  und  philosophische  Kritik,  January,    1900). 


78  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

equal  or  like  complexity.  They  found  none  apparently  more 
similar  in  that  respect  than  those  between  parts  of  animal 
organisms.  Scientific  study  of  animal  organisms  has  pro- 
gressed relatively  farther  than  scientific  study  of  human  asso- 
ciations. It  serves  to  spur  the  imagination  and  to  sharpen  the 
curiosity  of  investigators  who  w-ant  to  know  the  literal  truth 
about  the  social  reality.  For  these  reasons  biological  science 
has  been  called  to  the  assistance  of  sociologists,  not  merely  in 
furnishing  truth  about  the  physiological  substructure  of  human 
associations,  but  in  furnishing  thought-appliances  for  investi- 
gation of  those  relationships  which  are  beyond  the  competence 
of  biology.  It  is  thus  sheer  muddle-headedness  to  confuse  the 
tool  of  investigation,  and  the  medium  of  expression,  with  the 
supposed  nature  of  the  portion  of  reality  investigated. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  some  of  the  most  perspicuous 
thinking  on  this  subject  has  uttered  itself  in  language  that 
encourages  this  confusion.  It  has  doubtless  been  a  mistake  to 
allow  the  terminology  of  sociological  inquiry  to  seem  to  over- 
shadow in  importance  the  subjects  of  inquiry  themselves. 
Sociologists  who  are  perfectly  free  from  uncertainty  about  the 
above  distinction  have  frequently  used  terms  in  a  way  that  has 
prevented  less  discerning  persons  from  reaching  the  distinction. 
The  phrase  "biological  sociology,"  whether  used  with  correct 
or  incorrect  connotations,  has  always  been  unfortunate  in  this 
respect.  It  seems  to  imply  what  has  been  denied  above.  Hence 
it  is  to  be  pronounced  a  misnomer,  whether  adopted  by  friends 
or  applied  invidiously  by  foes. 

It  must  be  admitted,  too,  that  use  of  biological  figures  is 
worth  only  what  it  is  worth.  Its  utility  depends  largely  upon 
the  temper,  training,  and  taste  of  the  investigator,  or,  in  the 
case  of  teachers,  upon  the  mental  content  of  their  pupils. 
Doubtless  much  discovery  among  serial  relationships  may  be 
made  by  men  whose  methcKl  of  approach  and  whose  form  of 
expression  are  predominantly  mathematical,  or  mechanical, 
or  philosophical.  Whatever  may  be  claimed  to  the  contrary, 
the  prevailing  note   in   sociology,   from   Comte  down  to  the 


THE   HISTORY    OF    SOCIOLOGY  79 

present  time,  has  been  belief  in  a  psychical  something  and 
somehow,  marking  a  sphere  of  societary  reality  distinct  in 
thought  from  physical  reality.  This  proposition  is  not  intended 
in  a  dualistic  sense,  although  it  may  have  been  true  in  that 
sense  of  some  men.  It  is  used  here  in  a  sense  in  which  the 
stoutest  monist  might  employ  the  terms,  namely :  sociologists 
actually  distinguish  orders  of  fact  and  process  which  we  cannot 
yet  reduce  to  terms  of  a  single  unity,  no  matter  how  sure  we 
may  be  that  the  underlying  unity  exists.  Though  we  may  be 
monistic  in  our  theory  of  reality,  we  are  necessarily  dualistic, 
if  not  pluralistic,  in  our  apprehension  of  phenomena.^^  Accord- 
ingly, every  form  of  expression  whatever  which  tends  to 
obliterate  the  distinction  in  consciousness  between  the  physical 
and  the  psychical  in  societary  relationships  must  be  regarded 
as  a  crudity  in  our  symbolism.  We  all  regard  the  social  reality 
as  something  that  cannot  be  reported  accurately  in  terms  of 
factors  less  elementary  than  the  attributes  of  human  individuals. 
Whether  we  shall  symbolize  what  we  can  find  out  about  asso- 
ciations of  individuals  in  terms  of  quantity,  or  quality,  or 
form,  or  function,  or  ideal  conception ;  or  how  much  of  each 
sort  of  symbol  we  shall  employ,  is  purely  a  question  of  tech- 
nique, not  to  be  settled  by  any  stereotyped  formula. 

With  all  the  dangers  of  abuse,  the  device  of  physiological 
symbolism  has  very  considerable  advantages  at  certain  points, 
although  it  is  a  stumbling-block  to  men  who  lack  "  the  ana- 
logical imagination."  The  use  of  the  device  for  what  it  is 
worth  will  not  be  discouraged  by  dogmatism  or  misrepresenta- 
tion or  ridicule.  It  has  a  quite  incomparable  pedagogical  value 
within  wise  limits,  and  it  is  likely  to  be  more  or  less  useful, 
even  to  investigators,  for  a  long  time  to  come.  Indeed,  there 
is  not  a  sociologist  in  the  world  who  can  write  upon  any  part 
of  sociology  today,  even  if  his  subject  be  the  total  depravity  of 
"the  biological  method,"  without  framing  some  of  his  own 
arguments  in  tropical  use  of  biological  terms.-^     We  cannot 

"  Cf.  above,  p.  67. 

"  How  it  would  have  scandalized  the  critics  of  "  biological  sociology  "  if 


8o  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

think  the  social  complexity  to  the  limit  of  our  ability  to  appre- 
hend it,  without  assistance  from  the  next  lower  degree  of  com- 
plexity that  we  know.  The  extent  of  our  use  of  this  aid  is  a 
mere  matter  of  detail,  and  must  be  determined  by  expediency. 
C.  The  investigation  of  dynamic  lazvs. —  In  the  case  of  the 
philosophers  of  history  we  saw  that  any  characterization  is 
inaccurate  which  purports  to  distinguish  all  that  their  con- 
ceptions contain.  Not  merely  in  such  an  instance  as  that  of 
Herder,  but  likewise,  though  in  less  degree,  in  case  of  the  most 
contracted  view,  each  philosophy  of  history  leaves  some  room 
for  factors  not  thrown  into  prominence  in  its  formulations. 
The  like  is  true  of  the  sociologists.  Each  group  manifests 
something  of  all  the  tendencies  which  peculiarly  mark  the 
other  groups.  Under  the  present  head  we  are  to  consider  a 
portion  of  the  group  in  which  Barth  places  Lester  F.  Ward, 
J.  S.  Mackenzie,  Hauriou,  and  Franklin  H.  Giddings.  Earth's 
title  for  the  group  is  ''The  Dualistic  Sociology."  Except  in 
the  case  of  Professor  Giddings,  we  may  waive  the  question 
whether  the  most  significant  resemblances  and  differences  of 
method  justify  classification  of  these  men  in  the  same  group. 
Assuming,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  their  methods  are 

anyone  outside  of  their  own  number  had  suggested  "  social  anastomosis "  or 
"  social  inosculation  "  !  Vide  Tarde,  Les  transformations  du  pouvoir,  p.  8  ; 
and  Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  p.  30.  Professor  Ross  has  often  turned  his  fund  oi 
sarcasm  against  the  biological  method  of  expression,  but  he  so  far  forgets 
himself  as  to  indulge  in  liberties  like  the  following:  "  ....  a  man  ....  will 
cast  into  the  stock  of  ideas  circulating  through  the  capillaries  of  intercourse  (  !) 
only  those  which  are  not  hateful  or  shocking  to  his  readers "  (American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  V,  p.  765).  Professor  Giddings  also,  who  has  been 
most  pronounced  in  his  disapproval  of  biological  terms,  drops  into  use  of  them 
very  frequently  in  his  own  writing.  For  instance :  "  Thus  the  modification  of 
social  units  by  one  another,  the  modification  of  society  by  its  units,  and  the 
modification  of  the  units  of  society  are  always  organic  phenomena ;  they  are 
processes  of  psychological  assimilation  and  biological  evolution  "  (Principles  of 
Sociology,  p.  399).  Again,  he  says:  "We  have,  in  short,  materials  for  a 
structural  sociologfy  —  a  descriptive  social  anatomy"  (Inductive  Sociology,  p. 
29).  Ratzenhofer  says:  "  Der  Staat  als  hoheres  Socialgebilde  gleicht  den 
hoheren  Organismen,  in  welchen  sich  die  Zahl  der  Organe  vermehrt,  um  dem 
Totalzweck  des  Ganzen  besser  entsprechen  zu  konnen "  (Sociologische 
Erkenntniss,  p.    165)  ;    etc.,   etc. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  8i 

sufficiently  alike  to  place  the  first  three  in  a  group  by  them- 
selves, we  must  insist  that  the  group  is  neither  adequately  nor 
fairly  classified  by  the  phrase  "the  dualistic  sociology." 

We  may  concede  that  Comte  was  predominantly  material- 
istic and  mechanical  in  his  conceptions,  though  we  have  seen 
that  even  among  his  views  an  insistent  spiritualism  had  a  place, 
and  that  he  had  no  self-consistent  synthesis  of  the  two  phases 
of  reality.  Whether  we  count  Comte  as  an  example  or  an 
exception,  there  is  nolx)dy  in  the  whole  series  of  men  who  have 
made  an  impression  upon  sociology  to  whom  the  epithet 
"  dualistic  "  would  not  apply  as  properly  in  the  last  analysis  as 
to  the  men  here  named.  In  point  of  fact,  all  the  philosophers 
in  the  world  today  are  dualists  in  the  sense  indicated  above. 
The  fact  that  a  few  will  not  admit  the  impotence  of  their  for- 
mal monism  does  not  affect  the  proposition.  That  is  to  say,  no 
matter  how  prominent  the  assertion  of  fundamental  unity  may 
be  in  our  philosophy  today,  there  is  practically  no  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  the  methodological  necessity  of  recognizing  a 
phenomenal  duality.^ ^  The  diversity  of  matter  and  spirit  must 
be  admitted  by  all  to  this  extent,  namely :  whether  we  assert 
an  underlying  unity  or  not,  we  cannot  successfully  express 
what  we  see  in  the  objective  world  without  describing  elements 
that  seem  distinct  in  quality.  That  which  is  phenomenally 
psychic  is  not  reducible  by  any  means  at  our  disposal  to  terms 
of  physics. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  said  with  equal  truth  that 
there  are  today  no  philosophers  of  any  influence  v^'ho  are  not 
in  the  last  analysis  monists.  However  vigorously  they  may 
insist  upon  the  phenomenal  distinction  between  the  spiritual 
and  the  physical,  they  assume  sooner  or  later  that  underneath 
the  duality  of  appearance  there  is  an  inscrutable  unity  of 
reality.  It  is  accordingly  a  mark  of  inferior  rather  than  of 
superior  insight  to  characterize  philosophers  as  monistic  or 
dualistic.  Practically  all  philosophy  today  is  monistic  in  its 
ontological  presumption;    it   is  dualistic  or  pluralistic  in   its 

"  Cf.  above,  p.  67. 


82  ^  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

analytical  methods  and  in  its  classification  of  phenomena.  In 
the  case  of  the  sociologists  the  epithet  is  of  very  doubtful 
utility  in  any  instance.^^  It  is  certainly  so  in  the  case  of  the 
men  named  by  Barth  in  this  group.^^  Ward  makes  the 
physical  element,  which  must  be  taken  account  of  by  the 
sociologist,  so  prominent  in  the  scale  that  he  has  more  than 
once  been  denounced  as  a  materialist.  On  the  other  hand,  his 
distinctive  efifort  has  been  to  get  for  the  psychic  factors  in  social 
reactions  due  recognition  and  adequate  formulation.  If  we  use 
the  term  "  dualistic  "  as  a  mark  of  commendation,  it  is  appro- 
priate to  this  group.  The  men  named  deserve  praise  for  their 
efforts  to  show  that  a  psychic  as  well  as  a  physical  phase  of  the 
underlying  unity  is  wrought  into,  and  must  be  recognized  in, 
the  social  complexity. 

More  precisely,  the  significance  of  Ward  is  historically  this : 
He  first  published  (1883)  when  the  influence  of  Herbert 
Spencer  was  probably  at  its  height.  In  sociology  that  influence 
amounted  to  obscuration  of  the  psychic  element,  and  exaggera- 
tion of  the  physical  factors  concerned  in  shaping  social  com- 
binations. Whatever  be  the  fair  estimate  of  Spencer's  total 
influence  upon  sociology,  it  certainly  operated  for  a  time  to 
concentrate  attention  upon  the  mechanical  and  vital  elements 
in  social  combinations,  and  to  obscure  the  psychic  elements 
which  are  in  excess  of  the  physical.  While  the  Spencerian 
influence  was  uppermost,  the  tendency  was  to  regard  social 
progress  as  a  sort  of  mechanically  determined  redistribution 
of  energy  which  thought  could  neither  accelerate  nor  retard. 
Against  this  tendency  Ward,  a  most  energetic  monist.  opened  a 
crusade.  He  undertook  to  show  that  mind  can  control  the  con- 
ditions of  human  life  to  such  an  extent  that  it  is  possible  to 
inaugurate  a  new  and  better  era  of  progress.  According  to 
Ward,  there  is  a  difference  so  great  between  the  progress  of 

"  Especially  as  it  is  a  term  without  meaning,  unless  it  bears  the  tag  of  the 
particular  doctrine  from  whose  view-point  the  fault  is  alleged. 

°  This  view  of  the  error  in  Earth's  characterization  was  expressed  almost 
simultaneously  with  the  oriRinal  publication  of  this  chapter  by  M.  Alessandro 
Groppali,  Annates  dc  t'Instilut  dc  Sociologie,  Vol.  VI,  p.  262. 


THE    HISTORY    OF    SOCIOLOGY  83 

the  past  and  the  progress  to  be  anticipated  when  mind  shall 
have  applied  itself  to  the  problem,  that  we  may  speak  of  the 
latter  as  artificial  progress  and  the  former  as  accidental 
progress.^® 

At  the  time  of  its  publication  (1890)  Mackenzie's  book, 
An  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy,  was  the  ablest  survey 
that  had  been  made  of  the  whole  field  properly  so  designated. 
Nothing  that  has  since  appeared  has  made  the  book  obsolete, 
although  the  strategic  points  in  sociological  inquiry  have 
shifted  greatly,  and  have  become  in  many  respects  more  salient 
since  he  wrote.  It  is  a  mistake  on  Earth's  part  to  represent 
Mackenzie  as  the  exponent  of  any  particular  type  of  sociology. 
He  did  most  successfully  what  he  attempted.  In  his  preface 
he  says : 

Little,  if  anything,  of  what  is  now  pubHshed  can  be  claimed  as  original 
....  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  this  work  is  not  intended  as  a 
systematic  treatise  on  the  subject  with  which  it  deals,  but  only  as  a  slight 
contribution  to  the  discussion  of  it.  It  is,  indeed,  not  so  much  a  book  as 
an  indication  of  the  lines  on  which  a  book  might  be  written.  The  only 
merit  which  I  can  hope  it  may  be  found  to  possess  is  that  it  has  brought 
into  close  relation  to  each  other  a  number  of  questions  which  are  usually, 
at  least  in  England,  treated  in  a  more  disconnected  way.     (P.  viii.) 

Mackenzie's  work  has  been  appraised  by  the  sociologists 
generally  at  a  higher  valuation  than  the  author's  modest  esti- 
mate claims.  It  not  only  furnished  a  conspectus  of  relation- 
ships which  had  frequently  been  confused  or  ignored,  but  by  so 
doing  it  promoted  systematic  sociological  inquiry.  It  thus 
deserves  a  high  place  among  the  factors  that  have  developed 
sociological  method.  It  tried  to  make  real  the  subject-matter 
of  sociological  inquiry,  and  to  indicate  in  large  outline  the 
manner  in  which  approach  must  be  made  to  knowledge  of  this 
reality.  This  is  plain  from  the  author's  own  summary.^'^ 
Professor  Mackenzie  carefully  guards  against  calling  himself 
a  sociologist  at  all.  That  he  is  an  exponent  of  a  special  type  of 
sociology  in  Earth's  sense  is,  we  repeat,  a  mistake.     He  has 

"  De  Greef  expressed  a  similar  view  in  1891  :  Les  lots  sociologiques,  p.  31. 
"  First  edition,  pp.  369  ff. 


84  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

certainly  contributed  a  large  share  toward  the  introduction  of 
sanity  into  thought  about  social  relations.  He  has  not 
attempted,  however,  to  influence  sociological  method  except  in 
the  general  way  above  indicated. 

Hauriou  is  for  our  purposes  a  wholly  negligible  quantity.^^ 
Professor  Giddings  stands  for  certain  tendencies  which  deserve 
distinct  mention  under  another  head.  We  accordingly  return 
to  Ward  as  the  proper  representative  of  the  phase  of  metho- 
dology to  which  the  title  of  this  section  refers. 

We  must  observe  once  more  that  none  of  the  methods  with 
which  we  are  dealing  entirely  lacks  or  entirely  monopolizes  any 
factor  of  scientific  process.  Ward,  for  instance,  did  not  invent 
the  quest  for  formative  social  influences.  Men  had  been 
searching  for  them  since  the  world  began.  When  Ward  wrote 
Dynamic  Sociology,  however,  the  sociological  fashion  set  by 
Spencer  was  to  treat  social  forces  as  though  they  were  mills  of 
the  gods  which  men  could  at  most  learn  to  describe,  but  which 
they  might  not  presume  to  organize  and  control.  Ward  did 
not  declare  independence  of  the  natural  conditions  within 
which  the  human  problem  has  to  be  worked  out.  He  declared 
that  we  may  learn  physical  conditions,  and  at  the  same  time 
mental  conditions,  to  such  purpose  that  we  may  eventually 
make  human  progress  a  scientific  program.  His  emphasis, 
then,  was  upon  knowledge  of  the  effective  forces  in  social  con- 
ditions, with  ultimate  reference  to  deliberate  telic  application.^® 

Altogether  apart,  then,  from  any  specific  theorems  to  which 
Ward  committed  himself,  his  work  has  a  secure  place  as  a 
force  making  for  modification  of  the  aims  of  sociological 
theory.  It  is  Comte,  to  be  sure,  from  whom  Ward  takes  his 
cue,  but  Comte  had  no  scientific  standing-ground  broad  and 
firm  enough  to  permit  clear  prevision.  Spencer  was  virtually 
training  prevision  backward.    The  primary  meaning  of  Ward's 

"La  science  sociale  traditionelle  (Paris,  1896). 

"Vide  ist  ed.,  Preface,  p.  vii  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  81  ;  and  Vol.  II,  p.  159.  For 
Spencer's  unlike  views  ji</c  Social  Statics,  American  ed.  of  1892,  pp.  233  fT. ; 
also  De  Greef,  Introduction,  Vol.  II,  p.   13. 


THE   HISTORY    OF   SOCIOLOGY  85 

appearance  in  the  sociological  field  was  that  a  bold  campaign 
of  advance  was  proclaimed.  He  virtually  said  :  "  It  is  possible 
to  know  enough  about  the  conditions  of  the  conduct  of  life  to 
guide  society  in  a  deliberate  program  of  progress.  Let  us  pro- 
ceed, then,  to  organize  knowledge  and  research,  with  the 
definite  purpose  of  applying  it  to  social  progress.  Let  us  not 
be  content  longer  merely  to  analyze  and  describe  what  has 
taken  place  in  the  past  without  the  assistance  of  knowledge  at 
its  best.  Let  us  get  familiar  with  the  factors  of  human  prog- 
ress, and  when  we  have  learned  to  understand  them  let  us  use 
them  to  the  utmost  for  human  improvement." 

Ward  is  by  profession  a  biologist  (palseontological  botany). 
He  would  naturally  give  full  faith  and  credit  to  all  those  ele- 
ments in  human  conditions  which  the  physical  sciences  must 
explore.  With  this  taken  for  granted,  he  proposed  to  learn 
particularly  the  conditions  of  psychic  cause  and  effect  in 
society.  He  demanded  inquiry  into  the  laws  of  psychic  action, 
for  the  purpose  of  molding  society;  just  as  we  learn  the  laws 
of  physics  in  order  to  build  houses  or  bridges  or  engines. 
While  the  emphasis  of  other  sociologists  at  the  time  was 
upon  the  ways  in  which  non-sentient  nature  works,  Ward 
demanded  knowledge  of  how  mind  combines  its  work  with  that 
of  the  non-sentient  factors  of  human  conditions.  Thus  Ward 
called  for  knowledge  of  that  neglected  factor  of  reality  which 
is  the  differentiating  element  when  phenomena  emerge  from 
the  stage  of  unconsciousness  and  become  conscious.^'' 

Without  attempting  to  weigh  the  specific  results  of  Ward's 
effort,  we  must,  in  the  interest  of  clear  thinking,  do  justice  to 
his  aim  and  to  his  general  conception  of  method.  He  demands 
investigation  of  the  psychic  element  of  societary  facts  that 
shall  be  in  all  respects  comparable  with  the  investigations  of 
the  physical  basis  of  life  which  the  appropriate  sciences  are 
pursuing.  It  would  be  extraordinary  if  he  had  succeeded  in 
completing  the  task  which  he  undertook.  It  is  also  extraor- 
dinary to  demand  of  any  class  of  scholars  that  they  shall  say 

"  Cf.  The  Psychic  Factors  of  Civilisation,  pp.  v  and  vi. 


86  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

the  final  word  upon  all  the  inquiries  which  they  suggest,  or  be 
denied  appreciation.  The  work  of  Ward  made  an  era  in 
American  sociology,  and  the  fact  will  be  admitted  in  the  future 
even  by  men  whose  methods  are  very  different  from  those 
which  Ward  proposed. 

The  animating  conception  of  Ward's  work  is  that  dynamic 
sociology  must  be  the  application  of  all  available  forces,  physi- 
cal, industrial,  spiritual, ^^  to  the  attainment  of  rational  social 
ends.  It  may  be  said  that  this  is  a  platitude.  On  the  contrary, 
compared  with  certain  very  firmly  intrenched  views  of  society, 
it  is  practically  a  paradox.  For  instance,  Gumplowicz' 
Gnindriss  dcr  Sociologie  appeared  two  years  later  than 
Dynamic  Sociology.  In  the  chapter  on  class  structure  and  the 
aristocratic  order  (p.  133)  the  author  browbeats  those  bold 
democrats  who  presume  to  question  the  desirability  of  priests 
and  lords.  While  he  very  properly  shows  that  each  of  these 
classes  corresponds  to  a  social  need,  and  that  the  merit  of  each 
is  to  be  determined  by  its  discharge  of  the  indicated  function, 
he  adds :  "  Besides,  sociology  must  refrain  from  all  such  criti- 
cism of  nature.  For  sociology  only  the  facts  and  their  con- 
formity to  laws  have  an  interest."  According  to  him  the 
question,  "Could  things  not  be  different  and  better?"  is  not 
permissible  from  the  sociological  standpoint,  for  "  social  phe- 
nomena follow  necessarily  from  the  nature  of  men  and  from 
the  nature  of  their  relationships."  In  other  words,  Gumplowicz 
assumes  that  what  is  is  nature. ^^  Ward  assumes  that  what  is 
may  be  nature  partially  realized,  and  that  the  destiny  of  nature 
is  to  realize  itself  completely  through  action  by  its  conscious 
parts  upon  its  unconscious  parts.  This  "artificial  progress" 
will  not  nullify  nature,  but  will  make  potential  nature  actual.*^ 

"  Of  course,  this  use  of  popular  terms  does  not  imply  that  Ward  classifies 
social  forces  under  these  categories. 

"  It  is  gratifying  to  add  that  Gumplowicz  has  K'ven  Ward  credit  for  his 
conversion  from  the  view  quoted  (Die  Zcit,  August  20,  1904  ;  translated  in 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  X,  p.  643). 

"  "  It  is  not  merely  what  we  are  born  as,  or  what  the  world  begins  with, 
that    comes    of    itself.      The    most    ordinary    conception    of    growth    involves 


THE   HISTORY    OF   SOCIOLOGY  87 

The  antithesis  between  Ward  and  sociologists  Hke  Giimplo- 
wicz,  or  even  Spencer,  appears  in  his  behef  that  mind  can 
work  natural  laws  to  more  splendid  demonstration  of  the  laws. 
He  therefore  demands  more  knowledge  of  all  the  laws  con- 
cerned. "  The  attitude  of  man  toward  nature  should  be  two- 
fold :  first,  that  of  a  student;  second,  that  of  a  master."  ^'*  In  a 
word,  Ward's  fundamental  proposition  is :  We  must  learn  the 
quality  and  modes  of  action  of  the  efficient  social  forces.  Con- 
ceding room  for  debate  about  details  of  application  and  con- 
clusion. Ward's  central  idea  remains  unassailable. 

D.  Assumption  of  psychological  univcrsals. — All  thinking 
strives  toward  a  final  stage  in  which  the  object  may  be  repre- 
sented, not  as  it  seems  to  any  partial  perception,  but  as  it  is  in 
reality,  or,  as  some  of  the  psychologists  say,  "  as  it  would  look 
to  an  omniscient  mind."  Many  sociologists  have  been  so  eager 
for  their  science  to  reach  this  degree  of  maturity  that  they  have 
entertained  the  idea  of  a  method  capable  of  conducting  directly 
to  the  desired  end.  Zeal  for  discovery  of  universals  has 
prompted  some  of  the  best  work,  and  it  has  betrayed  into  some 
of  the  most  serious  mistakes,  in  sociology.  Nothing  more 
sharply  distinguishes  the*  sociologists,  as  a  class,  from  the 
specialists  whose  fragmentary  programs  promise  nothing  and 
propose  nothing  comprehensive,  than  the  explicit  aim  of  soci- 
ology to  reach  knowledge  which  shall  have  a  setting  for  all 
details  of  fact  about  human  associations,  in  a  complete  view 
of  human  associations  as  a  whole.  Demand  for  the  universal 
is  thus  the  very  reason  for  the  existence  of  sociology,  and  it  is 
perhaps  small  wonder  that  men  who  are  able  keenly  to  feel  the 
demand  are  allured  by  the  notion  of  a  method  peculiarly  related 
to  the  supply. 

It  is  in  this  connection  that  it  is  most  just  to  speak  of  the 
fourth  writer,  whom  Barth  dismisses  with  a  brief  reference 

maturity,  and  the  term  Nature,  in  Greek  and  Latin,  as  in  English,  can  indicate 
not  only  what  we  are  born  as,  but  what  we  are  born  for,  our  true  or  real  or 
complete  nature."  (Bosanquet,  Philosophical  Theory  of  the  State,  p.  130.) 

^*  Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  II,  p.  11. 


88  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

in  his  group  of  "  the  duaHstic  sociologists."  All  that  has  been 
said  above  about  the  inappropriateness  of  the  phrase  is  appli- 
cable to  Professor  Giddings.  It  would  be  superfluous  to 
volunteer  any  additional  disclaimers  in  his  behalf.  He  is  a 
monist  and  a  dualist  in  precisely  the  same  sense  in  which  all 
modern  thinkers  are  both  and  neither. 

Professor  Giddings  deserves  recognition  for  earnest  cham- 
pionship of  an  element  in  method  without  which  the  other 
elements  are  abortive.  His  mistake,  however,  seems  to  consist 
in  the  assumption  that  the  intellectual  end  toward  which  all 
valid  methods  converge  may  be  anticipated  and  made  a  means 
for  securing  the  end.  The  cabalistic  sign  of  this  potent  method 
is  the  phrase  "subjective  interpretation."^^  This  phrase  may 
mean  in  practice  either  of  two  things :  First,  the  reading  of 
the  interpreter's  personal  equation  into  the  thing  in  question.^® 
In  this  case  it  deserves  no  further  notice.  Second,  an  image 
of  the  thing  as  it  is  in  its  essence,  in  all  its  qualities  and  dimen- 
sions and  relations.  In  this  case  "subjective  interpretation" 
is  without  question  the  goal  to  be  reached,  but  it  ought  to  be 
equally  self-evident  that  it  cannot  meanwhile  be  the  method  by 
which  it  is  reached. 

Sociology,  as  it  appears  in  its  confused  literature  up  to  date, 
is  one  in  the  implicit  or  explicit  purpose  to  make  out  the  details 
of  relationships  involved  in  human  associations,  and  to  recon- 
struct them  in  thought  in  such  a  way  that  each  element  will 
be  credited  with  its  true  value  within  the  whole.     This  is  the 

"  Principles  of  Sociology,  pp.  1 1  and  36. 

"  Mr.  Philip  H.  Fogel  has  challenged  this  assertion,  and  has  called  it 
unfair  to  Professor  Giddings  (American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  X,  pp.  370, 
371).  I  must,  however,  allow  the  proposition  to  stand  as  it  was  originally 
published  {ibid.,  Vol.  V,  p.  639).  I  still  think  that  at  that  time  Professor 
Giddings  was  not  sufficiently  guarded  against  mistaking  his  own  subjectivity 
for  objective  reality.  He  had  so  much  of  the  courage  of  his  convictions  that 
he  did  not  pay  enough  respect  to  the  necessity  of  generalizing  convictions.  The 
claim  might  be  illustrated,  if  necessary,  by  citations  from  the  chapter  on  "  The 
Mind  of  the  Many,"  in  Democracy  and  Empire,  pp.  48-57.  I  must  add,  how- 
ever, that  I  discover  no  traces  of  the  objectionable  tendency  in  Inductive 
Sociology. 


THE   HISTORY    OF    SOCIOLOGY  89 

psychological  universal.  But  there  is  no  plenary  indulgence  in 
favor  of  sociology  to  dispense  with  the  purgatory  of  all  neces- 
sary logical  stages  between  the  specific  and  the  universal. 
Sociology  has  escaped  the  provincialism  of  less  ambitious  social 
sciences  in  proportion  as  it  has  kept  ultimate  universals  in  view. 
Hypothetical  universals  serve  the  same  uses  and  lend  them- 
selves to  the  same  abuses  in  sociology  as  elsewhere.  Nothing 
is  added  to  their  authority  by  the  title  "  subjective  interpreta- 
tion." The  phrase  is  merely  a  name  for  the  same  reconstruct- 
ive synthesis  which  every  philosopher,  from  the  Sophists 
down,  has  implicitly  aimed  to  achieve.  It  stands  for  the  mind's 
effort  to  represent  details  of  a  whole  in  their  adjustments  to 
each  other  within  the  whole.  Mental  organization  of  parts 
into  wholes,  or  analysis  of  wholes  into  parts,  is  a  constant 
reaction  between  the  objective  and  the  subjective.^'  The  his- 
tory of  thought  teems  with  examples  of  the  dangers  of  giving 
excessive  credit  to  the  subjective  element.  It  usually  results  in 
reading  into  objective  reality  undue  proportions  of  premature 
impression  about  reality.  All  formation  of  concepts  is  "  sub- 
jective interpretation."  All  descriptive  analysis,  all  classifica- 
tion, all  explanation  is  "  subjective  interpretation  "  in  the  only 
sense  admissible  in  science.^^  It  cannot  be  anything  else.  The 
fault  of  "subjective  interpretation"  as  an  arbiter  of  method 
is  that  it  is  likely  to  be  too  little  the  mind's  organization  of  ele- 
ments observed  in  the  object.  It  will  consequently  be  too  much 
the  mind's  fiction  stimulated  by  certain  impressions  received 
from  the  object,  but  completed  by  extraneous  material.  The 
report  of  the  object  proves,  then,  to  have  in  it  relatively  too 
little  of  the  object  and  relatively  too  much  of  the  subject.  This 
danger  is  inevitable  in  the  long  process  of  deriving  universals. 
It  may  be  averted  only  by  curbing  the  impertinences  of  the 
subjective  presumption. 

Sociology  is  essentially  an  effort  to  find  more  adequate 

"  The  terms  are  at  this  point  relative  to  the  consciousness  of  the  individual 
organizer. 

"  Viz.,  the  second  above,  mediated  by  progressive  correction  of  the  first. 


90  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

categories  with  which  to  conceptualize  social  details,  and  to 
organize  the  contents  of  these  categories  into  a  universal  con- 
ception. It  is  dangerous,  however,  to  think  anything  in  cate- 
gories which  cannot  be  observed,  but  have  to  be  imputed.  In 
applying  such  categories  we  are  likely  to  interpret  by  deduction 
from  unauthorized  impressions  that  fill  the  mind  in  the  absence 
of  adequate  analysis  of  the  object. 

The  whole  argument  of  this  syllabus  is  virtually  upon  the 
problem  here  presented.  As  the  essentials  involved  will  be  dis- 
cussed in  various  relations,  further  detail  may  for  the  present 
be  postponed. 

E.  The  desirable  combination  of  methods.^^ — It  may  be 
said,  in  general,  that  men  who  have  tried  to  explain  social  life 
have  tended  to  vibrate  between  two  extremes.  On  the  one 
hand,  they  have  exaggerated  fragments,  sections,  phases, 
abstractions,  disjecta  membra,  of  human  activities  and  condi- 
tions, and  have  neglected  the  containing  whole ;  '**^  or  they  have 
adopted  a  presumption  of  the  whole  which  took  away  their 
freedom  so  to  investigate  the  parts  that  more  appropriate  con- 
ceptions of  the  whole  might  result.  Our  thought  about  human 
affairs  has  consequently  been  a  farrago  of  snap- judgments, 
partial  formulations,  and  promotions  of  narrow  generalizations 
to  the  rank  of  universals.  In  order  that  worthy  beginnings  of 
societary  science  might  be  made,  there  must  needs  have  been 
developed  a  sense,  first  of  societary  continuity,  second  of 
societary  integrity;  i.  e.,  of  societary  wholeness,  both  consecu- 
tive and  contemporary.  More  especially  this  conception  makes 
of  human  association  a  whole,  developing  without  break  of 

"  Among  recent  Contributions  to  this  subject  the  following  deserve  special 
notice:  Bosanquet,  "Relation  of  Sociology  to  Philosophy,"  Mind,  January, 
1898;  Caldwell,  "  Philosophy  and  the  Newer  Sociology,"  Contemporary  Review, 
September,  1898;  Baldwin  (F.  S.),  "Present  Position  of  Sociology,"  Popular 
Science  Monthly,  October,  1899 ;  Giddings,  "  Exact  Methods  in  Sociology," 
Popular  Science  Monthly,  December,  1899  ;  Branford,  "  The  Origin  and  Use  of 
the  Word  '  Sociology,'  "  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  IX,  p.   145. 

*"  yide  De  Greef,  on  the  equal  tendency  of  industrial  and  academic  spe- 
cialization to  narrow  the  mind  and  the  man  (Lcs  lois  sociologiqucs,  p.  14,  et 
passim). 


THE   HISTORY    OF   SOCIOLOGY  91 

continuity  from  origins.  It  is  a  whole  which  exists  at  any 
given  moment  as  a  reciprocity  between  all  its  parts.  It  projects 
itself  into  the  future  in  the  form  determined  by  the  ratio  of 
effectiveness  between  the  elements  and  conditions  that  mold  its 
character.  This  view  requires  a  corresponding  methodologi- 
cal conception.  Such  a  conception  involves  the  view  that 
human  association  is  a  congruity,  an  integrity,  a  unity.  Knowl- 
edge of  such  a  reality  accordingly  implies  comprehension  of 
the  parts,  of  the  whole  which  they  compose,  and  of  the  relation- 
ships by  virtue  of  which  parts  and  whole  are  one.  This  means 
that,  however  study  of  human  affairs  may  be  divided  for  con- 
venience, the  division  is  only  provisional  and  partial  and  tem- 
porary. This  knowledge  is  not  reached  until  that  conceptual 
division  has  been  resolved  again  into  conceptual  unification,  in 
which  part  and  whole  are  more  accurately  apprehended  than 
before  as  phases  of  one. 

The  view  to  which  our  survey  leads  is,  therefore,  that  we 
need  a  scheme  of  inquiry  into  societary  fact  which,  as  a 
scheme,  will  provide  in  form  for  all  the  phases  of  reality  that 
the  societary  unity  presents.  Then  the  task  of  determining 
and  expressing  these  various  phases  of  reality  imposes  a  net- 
work of  problems.  We  may  call  them  primarily,  if  we  will, 
problems  of  anthropology,  ethnology;  history,  politics,  eco- 
nomics, or  whatever.  That  is,  we  may  group  certain  classes 
of  problems,  and  call  the  processes  and  results  in  connection 
with  them  "  sciences."  In  fact,  however,  each  of  these  prob- 
lems, or  groups  of  problems,  or  "sciences,"  sooner  or  later 
involves  all  the  rest.  Our  hierarchy  of  sciences  then  proves  to 
be,  like  the  unity  which  it  tries  to  interpret,  one  instead  of 
many.  The  social  sciences  are  merely  methodological  divi- 
sions of  societary  science  in  general. 

In  different  parts  of  the  world,  authorities  of  various  sorts 
have  created  more  or  less  arbitrary  classifications  of  the  social 
sciences.  This  occurs  chiefly  in  the  universities.  It  would  not 
require  a  long  argument  to  show  that  at  best  these  divisions 
are  likely  to  become  obstructive,  in  spite  of  their  adoption  for 


92  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

scientific  and  academic  convenience.  Whether  inquiry  into  the 
principles  of  human  association  be  conducted  by  use  of  a  tradi- 
tional or  an  extemporized  division  of  labor,  it  is  all  virtually 
one  search  into  one  reality.  The  divisions  exist  in  our  minds, 
not  in  the  object.  The  aim  of  science  is  to  comprehend  these 
apparent  diversities  as  members  of  the  unity  of  which  they  are 
aspects. 

There  should  be  a  name  to  cover  all  study,  of  whatever 
sort,  which  contributes  to  knowledge  of  the  societary  reality, 
or  associated  human  life,  just  as  the  name  "biology"  desig- 
nates no  specific  field  of  research,  but  the  whole  realm  of 
inquiry  into  the  conditions  and  processes  of  vegetable  and 
animal  life.  It  is  theoretically  of  very  slight  importance  in 
itself  what  name  is  chosen  for  that  whole  organon  of  knowl- 
edge about  society.  The  tendency  among  sociologists,  at  least, 
seems  to  be  toward  reassertion  of  the  judgment  that  the  name 
"  sociology "  is,  on  the  whole,  most  suitable  and  convenienf*^ 
This  tendency  is  parallel  with  gravitation  in  use  of  the  name 
"  biolog)\"  The  latter  is  now  understood  as  the  comprehensive 
term  for  the  whole  of  vital  science.  Similar  use  of  the  term 
"  sociology  "  would,  of  course,  give  it  a  much  broader  applica- 
tion than  belongs  to  it  as  the  designation  of  a  university  chair, 
or  of  a  specific  division  of  social  science.  Every  investigation 
of  a  phase  of  societary  reality  would  in  this  sense  be  a  chapter 
of  sociology,  just  as  vegetable  and  animal  embryology, 
morphology,  physiology,  ecology,  zoology,  etc.,  are  each  and 
all  chapters  of  biology.  The  persons  now  known  as  sociologists 
are  no  more  sociologists  in  the  proposed  sense  than  the  eth- 
nologists, historians,  economists,  political  scientists,  etc.     In 

*^  Thus  Tarde :  "  S'il  n'est  pas  vrai  que  les  diverses  sciences  sociales 
doivent  se  confondre  desormais  en  une  seule,  qui  serait  la  sociologie,  il  est 
certain  qu'elles  doivent  toutes  s'y  plonger  I'une  apres  I'autre,  pour  en  sortir 
soit  retrempees  et  rajeunies,  soit  glaciales  et  inanimees.  Cela  depend  de  la 
qualite  du  bain  "  jiLes  transformations  du  poui'oir,  p.  v).  Dietzel  does  not 
seem  to  regard  "  sociology "  as  worth  serious  notice,  but  by  the  term 
Socialwissenschaft  he  evidently  means  precisely  what  the  term  "  sociology " 
connotes  in  this  discussion.      Vide  Theorctischc  Socialokonomik,  chap.    i. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  93 

parallel  fashion  there  are  no  biologists  today  who  are  not 
more  specifically  botanists,  physiologists,  zoologists,  neurolo- 
gists, etc.**^ 

In  other  words,  the  outcome  of  thought  about  men  in 
association  amounts  to  dawning  perception  that  human  asso- 
ciation is  not  a  mere  academic  conventionality.  It  is  the 
objective  reality  which  is  the  setting  for  the  ultimate  human 
problem  of  the  conduct  of  life.  Knowledge  of  this  reality 
depends  upon  organization  of  the  results  of  a  multitude  of 
investigations,  many  of  which  have  not  yet  been  proposed,  and 
few,  if  any,  of  which  have  been  completed.  Sociology  then, 
in  the  large  sense,  or  the  organon  of  knowledge  about  human 
associations,  is  today  a  vast  system  of  problems  concerning  the 
essential  elements  and  correlations  of  human  association.  This 
being  the  case,  all  the  ways  and  means  thus  far  devised  for 
investigating  human  associations  have  their  uses  at  the  proper 
time  and  place,  but  it  is  evident  that  the  conventional  "  sci- 
ences "  are  at  best  rudimentary  means  for  advancing  knowledge 
of  association  in  general.  There  must  be  diminishing  regard 
for  the  lines  drawn  by  "  sciences,"  and  increasing  attention  to 
the  direct  import  of  problems. 

For  example,  it  has  been  said  by  Herbert  Spencer,  with 
prescience  far  in  advance  of  his  science,  that  "  the  question  of 
questions  for  the  politician  should  ever  be :  *  What  type  of 
social  structure  am  I  tending  to  produce?'""*^  There  is  no 
difference  of  opinion  among  social  theorists  as  to  the  abstract 
desirability  of  knowledge  about  the  relation  of  different  sorts 
of  acts  to  social  structure.  One  at  least  of  the  large  problems 
of  social  science  is  accordingly  this :  "  How  do  different  sorts 
of  acts  affect  social  structure?  "  Now,  there  is  no  conventional 
academic  "  department "  or  social  science  to  which  such  a  prob- 
lem belongs.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  no  department  or 
science  to  w^hich  it  does  not  belong.  It  is  a  real  problem,  just 
as  truly  as  the  question  of  the  effect  of  electrolysis  upon  steel 

*^  Vide  above,  pp.  42,  43. 

"Social  Statics  and  Man  vs.  the  State,  Am.  ed.  of  1892,  p.  312. 


94  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

construction  is  a  real  problem.  The  anthropologist,  the  psy- 
chologist, the  ethnologist,  the  historian,  the  political  econo- 
mist, the  political  scientist,  and  an  indefinite  number  of  sub- 
sidiary specialists,  must  necessarily  co-operate  in  the  solution 
of  the  problem. 

Again,  it  is  equally  important  to  know  what  individual  type 
any  social  arrangement  tends  to  produce.  In  this  case  the  same 
proposition  holds.  The  concrete  truth  about  the  effect  of 
human  conduct  is  not  the  preserve  of  any  abstract  science.  We 
might  schedule  in  turn  all  the  genera  and  species  of  problems 
that  we  encounter  when  we  search  for  the  meaning  elements  in 
society.  They  are  threads  in  a  tapestry.  There  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  a  self-sufficient  science  of  the  separate  threads.  The 
meaning  of  the  threads  depends  upon  knowledge  of  the  com- 
plete design  of  the  whole  fabric. 

Accordingly,  over  and  above  the  multitude  of  more  con- 
crete sociological  tasks  for  which  a  place  is  conceded  without 
much  opposition,  there  are  two  distinguishable  procedures  of 
a  general  character  for  which  thorough  and  comprehensive 
societary  science  must  provide.  The  former  of  these  is  the 
division  of  labor  appropriate  to  that  species  of  sociologist  who 
may  be  called  the  methodologist.  It  is  the  task  of  making  out 
and  exhibiting  in  the  most  general  way  the  forms  and  inter- 
relations of  societary  facts,  and  the  consequent  interdepend- 
encies  of  processes  which  undertake  scientific  formulation  of 
these  facts.  The  familiar  De  Greef  schedule  6f  societary 
activities  may  serve  as  an  illustration  of  the  beginning  of  this 
procedure.  A  classification  of  associations  under  the  forms 
called  for  by  Simmel's  method  would  represent  a  much  more 
advanced  stage  of  the  procedure.  A  classification  according  to 
the  functional  utilities  of  various  associations  would  be  a  still 
closer  approach  to  the  desirable  universal. 

The  general  genetic  (luestion  about  all  associations  is: 
Through  what  course  of  differentiation  did  these  activities 
come  into  existence?  This  (juestion  demands  the  researches 
of  all  sj)ccics  of  historical  science.     The  genera!  statical  ques- 


THE    HISTORY    OK    SOCIOLOGY  95 

tion  about  associations  is  :  What  forms  and  qualities  of  forces, 
in  what  proportions,  maintain  social  structures  in  equilibrium? 
This  question  demands  organization  of  the  results  of  the 
systematizing  abstract  sciences  of  society,  i.  e.,  sciences  of 
abstracted  phases  of  social  activity;  e.  g.,  economics,  cTSthetics, 
demography,  comparative  law,  comparative  politics,  compara- 
tive philosophy,  and  comparative  religion.  These  too  are 
largely,  of  course,  dependent  upon  historical  processes.  The 
general  dynamic  question  about  societies  is:  What  influences 
operate,  and  in  accordance  with  what  formulas,. to  change  the 
equilibrium  or  type  of  societary  status?  The  general  tele- 
ological  question  about  associations  is :  What  ends  or  sys- 
tems of  ends  are  indicated  by  the  foregoing  exhibits  of  human 
resources?  What  is  the  apparent  goal  toward  which  human 
co-operation  tends,  and  toward  which  it  may  be  directed? 
This  is  a  question  of  valuations,  to  be  answered  in  accordance 
with  logical  and  psychological  principles  which  have  a  com- 
petence of  their  own  in  sociology,  but  always  dependent  upon 
recognition  of  principles  of  knowledge  involved  in  the  ante- 
cedent stages  of  analysis  and  synthesis.  The  methodologist 
consequently  has  to  detect  the  relations  between  problems 
that  arise,  primarily  in  one  of  these  divisions  of  inquiry,  and 
evidence  which  other  divisions  of  investigation  are  alone  com- 
petent to  furnish.  The  methodologist  has  to  show  the  funda- 
mental relations  of  one  portion  of  societary  inquiry  with  other 
portions,  and  so  far  as  possible  to  organize  corresponding 
co-operation  among  sociologists. 

The  second  procedure  is  not  logically  co-ordinate  with  nor 
entirely  separable  from  the  first.  Its  practical  value  is  so  great, 
however,  that  it  deserves  distinct  and  prominent  rank.  It  is 
determination  of  the  relative  significance  of  different  orders 
of  knowledge  about  society,  and  also  of  the  proportionate 
stress  to  be  laid  at  a  given  time  upon  different  lines  of  inquiry. 
No  knowledge  is  trivial  that  helps  to  complete  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  knowledge,  yet  untold  energies  are  wasted  in  the  name 
of  science  upon  minutiae  that  are  morally  certain  to  remain  so 
unrelated    to   the    developing   organon    of    knowledge    about 


g6  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

society  that  in  effect  they  are,  and  will  remain,  trifles.  A 
notorious  case  is  much  of  the  work  done  by  certain  disciples  of 
Le  Play  upon  the  budgets  of  workingmen's  families.^^  At 
every  stage  in  the  advancement  of  sociology  there  is  need  of 
signals  from  observers  on  the  high  places  about  the  kind  of 
knowledge  most  in  demand  at  that  moment  to  reinforce  the 
system  of  knowledge  at  its  weakest  points.  This  second  pro- 
cedure, like  the  other,  is  of  the  philosophical  rather  than  of 
the  scientific  order  of  generality.  It  may  be  said  to  belong  to 
the  social  philosopher  rather  than  to  the  methodologist ;  yet 
the  connections  between  the  two  must  be  so  close,  even  if 
there  is  an  actual  division  of  labor  at  this  point,  that  we  may, 
without  serious  inaccuracy,  speak  of  this  second  procedure  as 
belonging  to  general  methodology. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  that  the  growth  of 
sociological  method  tends  to  undermine  the  walls  of  division 
that  have  been  constructed  between  the  social  sciences,  and 
indeed  between  those  sciences  and  psychology  and  general 
philosophy.  It  tends  to  call  for  restatements  of  social  prob- 
lems in  terms  of  their  relations  to  the  whole  social  reality.  It 
tends  to  repudiation  of  pedantic  academic  statements  of  prob- 
lems, merely  in  terms  of  their  interest  for  the  isolated  division 
of  research  in  which  they  have  been  considered.  It  tends  to 
subordinate  all  the  valid  means  of  investigation  and  report, 
that  have  been  perfected  within  the  field  of  societary  research, 
to  any  uses  that  may  arise  anywhere,  at  any  time,  in  the  solu- 
tion of  any  species  of  societary  problem. 

Thus  sociological  method  has  developed  into  demand  for 
concentration  of  mediate  methodological  resources.  Sociology 
indicates  that  the  fragmentary  problems  of  the  "  sciences  "  are 
to  be  made  real  by  restatement  in  their  objective  relations  as 
problems  of  association.  Sociology  is  a  symptom  that  points 
to  restoration  of  the  "sciences"  from  the  effort  to  live  unto 
themselves.      Sociology  points  to  discharge,   jjy  each  of  the 

"  It  is  only  necessary  to  compare  the  sort  of  information  referred  to  with 
the  standards  of  Le  Play  himself  and  his  more  intelligent  followers,  to  expose 
its  futility. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   SOCIOLOGY  97 

partial  sciences,  of  the  function  of  furnishing-  appropriate  parts 
of  the  knowledge  needed  to  construct  a  rational  basis  for  the 
conduct  of  life.'*^ 

Few  scholars  are  ready  to  accept  the  foregoing  analysis. 
This  is  partly  cause  and  partly  effect  of  rejecting  the  term 
"sociology"  in  the  proposed  sense;  or  w'orse,  of  denying  the 
existence  of  the  thing  for  which  the  name  is  proposed.  It  is 
contended  by  many  that  everything  here  outlined  is  implied  in 
traditional  divisions  of  knowledge,  and  is  actually  provided  for 
by  them.  In  one  sense  it  is,  but  the  same  thing  is  true  over  and 
over  again  of  every  portion  of  our  knowledge.  If  we  were  to 
refuse  license  to  new  forms  of  reflection  upon  perceptive 
material  simply  because,  either  in  fact  or  by  implication,  it  had 
been  in  consciousness  before,  we  should  directly  reduce  thought 
to  the  idiot's  reaction  upon  sensations. 

The  essential  question  is :  Do  all  these  things  need  to  be 
done  by  somebody,  and  under  some  designation  or  other?  Is 
the  social  fact  encountered  in  all  its  dimensions  if  it  is  less 
comprehensively  conceived?  Can  a  less  intensive  and  exten- 
sive examination  of  the  social  reality  arrive  at  the  body  of 
knowledge  of  which  we  are  beginning  to  perceive  the  need? 
Can  all  this  be  realized  and  not  be  one  at  last  ?  If  the  correct 
answer  were  given  to  these  questions,  and  if  all  thought  about 
society  were  correlated  accordingly,  sociology  and  sociologists 
might  be  read  out  of  separate  existence,  so  far  as  a  name  goes, 
and  the  indicated  scientific  and  philosophic  processes  might  go 
on  as  before.  The  names  are  nonessentials.  Complete  con- 
ception of  societary  relationships,  and  corresponding  investiga- 
tion and  arrangement  of  facts  about  those  relationships,  are  the 
essentials  upon  which  the  sociological  methodologist  insists.'*® 

"Allowing  for  the  physical  bias  noted  above  (p.  82),  Spencer  seems  to 
have  had  nearly  this  conception  in  mind  when  he  said  :  "  That  which  is  really 
needed  is  a  systematic  study  of  natural  causation  as  displayed  among  beings 
socially  aggregated  "  (Social  Statics  and  Man  vs.  the  State,  Am.  ed.  of  1892, 
P-  355)- 

**  For  alternative  formulas  of  the  general  scope  of  social  science,  iHde 
Dietzel,  Theoretische  Socialokonomik,  pp.  12  f.  Cf.  Schmoller,  Grundriss  der 
allgemeinen  Volkswirtschaftslehre,  p.  J2,  et  passim. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  PROBLEMS  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

The  foregoing  chapters  have  impHed  all  that  need  be  said 
at  this  point  about  our  problems.  These  implications  may  be 
put  into  direct  expression  very  briefly. 

A  dozen  years  ago  an  eminent  professor  began  a  course  of 
lectures  on  sociology  with  the  definition :  "  Sociology  is  the 
science  that  deals  ivith  the  labor  problem."  That  is  very  much 
as  though  one  should  say :  "  Physics  is  the  science  that  deals 
with,  building  water-wheels;"  or,  "Chemistry  is  the  science 
that  deals  with  sterilizing  milk."  Each  proposition  tells  truth, 
but  each  tells  such  a  minute  fraction  of  the  truth  that  it  is 
ridiculous.  Similar  representations  have  left  the  impression 
in  many  minds,  however,  that  sociology  is  virtually  a  trade, 
like  carpentry,  or  plumbing,  or  shoemaking,  and  that  its 
resources  consist  of  a  few  working  rules  for  plying  the  trade 
so  as  to  reach  definite  results. 

Other  ways  of  defining  sociology  are  from  a  different 
point  of  view,  but  they  are  hardly  less  provincial.  They 
assume  that  sociology  deals  with  principles  that  prevail 
throughout  the  area  of  human  activities,  but  that  these  prin- 
ciples are  to  be  discovered  solely  by  investigating  certain  very 
narrow  ranges  of  evidence.  For  instance,  to  take  a  conspicu- 
ous and  influential  case :  Herbert  Spencer  entitles  Part  I  of 
his  Principles  of  Sociology,  "The  Data  of  Sociology."  The 
table  of  contents  may  be  used  as  an  edifying  lesson  in  logic. 
There  are  twenty-seven  chapters.  We  should  notice  the 
definite  article  in  the  heading.  These  are  not  sample  data,  from 
the  like  of  which  a  science  of  sociology  is  to  be  constructed. 
They  are  "the  data  of  sociology."  Mr.  Spencer  did  not  mean 
that  he  really  thought  these  arc  the  only  data  of  sociology. 
He  said  in  so  many  words,  often  enough,  that  the  data  of 

98 


THE    PROBLEMS    OF   SOCIOLOGY  99 

sociology  must  be  found  wherever  there  is  society.  But  he 
yielded  very  largely  to  the  temptation  that  lurks  in  an  interest 
for  a  special  kind  of  evidence,  and  he  encouraged  other  people 
to  think  that  the  sort  of  thing  which  these  chapters  refer  to  is 
the  one  preserve  within  which  sociology  has  rights.  Here  are 
the  chapter  titles : 

1.  "  Super-Organic  Evolution." 

2.  "The  Factors  of  Social   Phenomena." 

3.  "  Original  External  Factors." 

4.  *'  Original  Internal  Factors." 

5.  "  The  Primitive  Man,  Physical." 

6.  "  The  Primitive  Man,  Emotional." 

7.  "The  Primitive  Man,  Intellectual." 

8.  "  Primitive  Ideas,  Intellectual." 

9.  "  The  Idea  of  the  Animate  and  the  Inanimate." 
ID.  "  The  Ideas  of  Sleep  and  Dreams." 

11.  "The  Ideas  of  Swoon,  Apoplexy,  Catalepsy,  Ecstasy  and  Other 
Forms  of  Insensibility." 

12.  "  The  Ideas  of  Death  and  Resurrection." 

13.  "  The  Ideas  of  Souls,  Ghosts,  Spirits,  Demons,  etc." 

14.  "The  Ideas  of  Another  Life." 

15.  "The  Ideas  of  Another  World." 

16.  "  The  Ideas  of  Supernatural  Agents." 

17.  "  Supernatural  Agents  as  Causing  Epilepsy,  and  Convulsive 
Actions,  Delirium  and  Insanity,  Disease  and  Death." 

18.  "  Inspiration,   Divination,   Exorcism  and   Sorcery." 

19.  "  Sacred  Places,  Temples  and  Altars,  Sacrifice,  Fasting  and  Pro- 
pitiation :     Praise,  Prayer,  etc." 

20.  "  Ancestor-Worship  in  General." 

21.  "Idol-Worship    and    Fetich- Worship." 

22.  "  Animal-Worship." 

23.  "  Plant- Worship." 

24.  "  Nature-Worship." 

25.  "  Deities- Worship." 

26.  "  The  Primitive  Theory  of  Things." 
2y.  "  The  Scope  of  Sociology." 

Now,  a  prime  fallacy  in  Mr.  Spencer's  system  of  sociology 
is  the  assumption  that  we  can  find  in  the  primitive  man  all 
the  evidence  which  is  needed  to  explain  the  social  man  in 
general.^     He  says  (§210)  : 

'For    Dewey's    much    more    radical    criticism    of    Spencer  —  viz.,    on    the 


100  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

Setting  out  with  social  units  as  thus  conditioned,  physically,  emotion- 
ally, and  intellectually,  and  as  thus  possessed  of  certain  early  acquired 
notions  and  correlative  feelings,  the  science  of  sociology  has  to  give  an 
account  of  all  the  phenomena  that  result  from  their  combined  action^.' 

No  word  is  here  implied  in  disparagement  of  the  study  of 
primitive  men.  It  is  instructive  and  invaluable ;  but  for  revela- ,, 
tion  of  man  as  man  there  is  not  a  clump  of  neighbors  in  any 
rural  community  or  city  block  today  that  does  not  offer  vastly 
more  evidence  toward  explaining  primitive  men  than  the  same 
number  of  primitive  men  can  ever  afford  to  explain  our 
neighbors.  It  is  a  grotesque  hallucination  that  men  in  stages 
of  arrested  development  —  men,  moreover,  about  whom  all 
available  evidence  is  woefully  meager  —  furnish  the  only  clues 
to  human  nature.  In  fact,  a  handful  of  knowledge  of  today's 
men,  just  as  they  are,  is  worth,  if  properly  sifted,  more  than  a 
ton  of  the  sort  of  information  we  can  get  about  men  of  any 
other  period.  Rate  as  high  as  we  will  the  value  of  the  past  in 
explaining  the  present,  we  may  set  it  down  as  certain  that  the 
present  will  prove  a  hundred-fold  as  useful  in  explaining  the  - 
past.  Sociology  has  no  particular  preference  or  affinity  for 
any  cross-section  of  humanity.  Its  task  is  to  discover  those 
things  which  are  most  true,  and  truest  of  the  most  of 
humanity. 

Experience  in  analyzing  social  situations  into  their  details 
may  possibly  be  best  gained  by  dealing  with  the  rudest  and 
simplest  men  and  societies.  In  one  sense  it  is  true  that  we 
may  find  all  the  elements  of  the  most  sophisticated  men  and 
societies  among  the  nature  peoples,  just  as  we  may  trace  the 
rudiments  of  all  possible  intellectual  processes  in  the  baby's 
state  of  mind  when  he  stops  crying  for  the  moon.  It  does  not 
follow,  however,  that  we  can  learn  all  that  we  need  to  know 
about  men  and  society  by  studying  primitive  peoples,  any  more 

ground  that  his  evidence  is  too  heterogeneous  to  justify  any  conclusion  at  all  — 
vide  "  Interpretation  of  the  Savage  Mind,"  Psychological  Review,  May,  1902. 
'  This  is  the  more  desperately  foolish,  the  more  we  find  in  the  primitive 
mind  a  statical  type.  But  upon  this  our  argument  has  not  yet  called  up  the 
means  for  proper  comment. 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   SOCIOLOGY  loi 

than  we  can  learn  all  that  we  need  to  know  about  logic  by 
studying  the  baby.  The  task  of  sociology  is  to  investigate 
manifestations  of  the  social  process  under  any  and  all  condi- 
tions, from  the  most  primitive  to  the  most  sophisticated. 
Ideally,  we  ought  to  have  exhibits  of  men's  external  conditions 
and  of  the  contents  of  their  minds,  parallel  with  Spencer's 
schedule  above,  for  every  step  of  their  development.  Until 
our  data  satisfy  that  demand  we  cannot  be  sure  that  we  have 
correctly  generalized  the  laws  of  social  action.  Practically, 
we  should  gain  very  much  more  of  real  value  by  studying  the 
social  psychology  of  the  group  with  which  we  are  in  closest 
contact  —  our  own  town,  school,  church,  social  set  —  than  we 
could  from  the  most  prolonged  study  of  all  that  can  now  be 
known  of  any  primitive  group. 

Speaking  roughly,  and  for  the  great  majority  of  competent 
thinkers  who  do  not  propose  to  specialize  upon  some  portion 
of  ethnological  research,  the  best  that  we  can  get  from  accounts 
of  primitive  men  are  hints  about  what  to  look  for  in  our 
acquaintances.  The  scope  of  sociology  includes  the  conditions, 
the  motives,  the  mechanism,  and  the  results  of  social  action 
everywhere.  All  of  that  must  be  presumed  to  exist  most  per- 
fectly, not  where  social  action  is  most  rudimentary,  but  where 
it  is  most  finished.  Nothing,  therefore,  that  throws  light  upon 
the  constant  and  the  general  in  social  relations  is  outside  the 
scope  of  sociology.  Human  experience  always  has  value  as 
sociological  evidence,  whether  it  occurs  in  the  most  rudimen- 
tary or  in  the  most  developed  society. 

This  again  should  help  to  explain  the  confusing  fact  that 
sociologists  are  studying  such  widely  varying  things.  They 
may  err  very  greatly  in  judgment  about  the  best  economy  of 
their  efforts.  They  may  spend  vastly  more  strength  upon 
selected  kinds  of  material  than  the  results  will  ever  compen- 
sate ;  but,  however  disproportionate  their  efforts  may  be  to  the 
importance  of  results,  every  manifestation  of  the  social,  every- 
where, and  under  all  circumstances  whatsoever,  is  proper 
subject-matter  for  the  sociologist.    Whatever  can  be  found  out 


102  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

from  any  race  of  men,  or  from  any  period  of  its  history,  is 
legitimate  material  for  sociology.  It  must  be  organized,  how- 
ever, into  its  proper  subordination  to  knowledge  of  all  other 
men,  in  all  other  times  and  places  and  circumstances. 

Having  at  such  length  varied  our  description  of  the  view- 
point to  be  occupied,  we  may  approach  a  step  nearer  to  our 
peculiar  work  by  trying  to  define  the  problem  or  problems 
encountered  when  we  take  this  point  of  view.^ 

The  different  kinds  of  knowledge  within  our  reach  may 
be  grouped  under  the  two  titles,  "  Nature  "  and  "  People."  If 
our  thinking  approaches  the  scientific  stage,  there  comes  a  time 
when  we  discover,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  things  about 
which  we  have  acquired  knowledge  under  these  two  titles  are 
not  altogether  exclusive;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  our 
knowledge  about  either  of  these  groups  is  far  from  satisfactory. 
What  we  know  may  pass  virtually  into  the  interrogative  form, 
viz. :  If  we  knew  more,  how  otherwise  would  the  things 
appear  that  we  seem  to  know? 

Thinking,  for  our  present  purposes,  simply  of  our  knowl- 
edge about  people,  when  we  have  reached  the  mental  stage,  let 
us  say,  of  the  typical  senior  in  college,  we  have  in  our  posses- 
sion a  large  collection  of  concepts  about  people,  and  a  certain 
quantity  of  information  out  of  which  those  concepts  have  been 
built  up,  or  by  which  they  are  illustrated.  We  have  learned  to 
think  of  people  in  turn  as  geographically  grouped;  as  dis- 
tinguished by  certain  racial  peculiarities ;  as  having  govern- 
ments of  various  sorts ;  as  speaking  different  languages ;  as 
practicing  diverse  customs;  pursuing  dissimilar  vocations; 
maintaining  sundry  systems  of  bonds  or  barriers  between  strata 
and  classes  of  the  population  ;  exhibiting  contrasted  phenomena 
of  aesthetic  feeling;  accepting  unlike  moral  standards;  pro- 
fessing divers  religions.  Thus  our  attention  may  have  been 
called  to  certain  external  features  of  every  species  of  occurrence 
that  takes  place  among  people.     Our  information  about  some 

*  Vide  Small,  "  The  Problems  of  Sociology,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 
Vol.  V,  p.  778. 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   SOCIOLOGY  103 

of  these  occurrences  may  be  quite  extensive.  The  more  ener- 
getic our  interest  in  prying  beyond  the  face  of  the  facts  to 
discover  why  they  took  place,  whether  there  are  connections 
between  them,  and  what  different  sorts  of  relationship  exist 
between  human  experiences,  the  more  definite  will  be  our 
distrust  of  the  finality  of  our  previous  knowledge. 

If  we  push  our  inquiry,  we  sooner  or  later  realize  that  the 
concepts  by  means  of  which  we  have  thought  people  and  their 
activities  have  in  a  sense  misrepresented  both.  We  become 
aware  of  a  feeling  that  our  ways  of  arranging  people  and  their 
activities  into  systems,  geographical,  racial,  political,  occupa- 
tional, creedal,  or  whatever,  are  open  to  grave  suspicion.  Is  it 
not  possible  that  these  systems  really  draw  a  veil  over  what  we 
need  at  last  to  know?  May  we  not  have  conceived  of  people 
and  their  activities  under  so  many  categories  of  contrast,  and 
separation,  and  disjunction,  that  similarity,  and  unity,  and 
community  have  been  overlooked?  In  trying  to  understand 
society,  may  we  not  have  committed,  on  a  large  scale,  a  blun- 
der which  may  be  illustrated  on  a  small  scale  in  the  case  of  an 
army?  Suppose  we  had  thought  of  a  given  army  in  terms  of 
its  distribution  over  a  given  area,  the  geometrical  form  of  its 
camps,  the  colors  of  its  uniforms,  the  marks  of  distinction 
between  infantry,  cavalry,  artillery,  engineers,  etc.,  etc.,  but 
had  entirely  neglected  such  considerations  as  the  physical  con- 
dition of  the  troops,  their  discipline,  their  equipment,  the  prin- 
ciples of  organization,  the  qualifications  of  officers,  the  reserve 
of  supplies  and  men,  the  tactics,  the  strategy,  the  position,  and 
the  nature  of  the  military  problem  to  be  solved.  In  such  a  case 
our  knowledge  might  be  curious  and  picturesque,  and  even 
precise,  so  far  as  it  went ;  but  it  would  be  knowledge  simply  of 
a  partially  understood  aggregation  of  men.  It  would  not 
amount  to  knowledge  of  the  men  as  an  army  at  all.  It  would 
include  neither  insight  into  the  influences  that  brought  the 
men  together,  nor  understanding  of  the  ways  in  which  their 
numbers  were  maneuvered  after  they  came  together,  nor  appre- 
ciation of  the  adjustment  of  means  to  ends  throughout  their 
whole  composite  existence. 


104  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

In  our  knowledge  of  human  experience  as  a  whole  there 
is  a  stage  closely  resembling  such  a  superficial  view  of  an  army. 
At  that  stage  our  knowledge  amounts  to  a  somewhat  vivid 
and  diversified  panorama  of  people  and  events.  The  arrange- 
ment of  the  successive  pictures  conforms  more  or  less  strictly 
to  conventional  classifications.  We  see  people  now  as  the 
ethnologist  divides  them ;  now  as  the  political  historian 
arranges  them;  now  as  the  economist  groups  them;  now  as 
distinctions  of  caste  or  class  stratify  them;  now  as  phases  of 
belief  partition  them.  What  we  do  not  see  is  a  clear  composite 
picture  of  the  concrete  experience  through  which  actual  people 
are  progressing.  The  problem  of  sociology  is  to  compose  our 
scattered  views  of  aspects  of  society  into  a  truthful  composite 
picture. 

To  speak  more  literally,  there  is  a  stage  of  our  knowledge 
about  people  at  which  we  have  rather  definite  insight  into  the 
physical  aspects  of  life,  the  economic  aspects,  the  political,  the 
moral,  the  intellectual,  the  aesthetic,  the  religious  in  turn.  On 
the  other  hand,  our  very  dissection  of  life  into  these  abstrac- 
tions has  so  split  up  reality  into  artificial  conceptions  that  we 
are  unable  to  see  the  human  whole  of  which  these  abstractions 
are  phases.  A  maturer  stage  of  knowledge  must  approach 
nearer  to  comprehension  of  the  whole  as  a  whole.  It  is  not 
only  possible,  but  in  the  course  of  final  knowledge  necessary,  to 
think  of  the  fortunes  of  all  men  as  in  a  sense  one  experience. 
Our  problem  is  to  discover  all  the  actual  oneness  in  human 
affairs,  and  to  find  the  meanings  of  the  parts  of  experience  by 
making  out  their  relation  to  this  common  element. 

Prime  factors  —  or,  as  Spencer  would  say,  data  —  of  the 
problem  are,  first,  the  essential  similarity  of  the  individuals 
concerned;  second,  the  essential  similarity  of  the  conditions 
within  which  the  individuals  act;  third,  the  continuity  of  rela- 
tionships from  individual  to  individual  and  from  situation  to 
situation.  The  generations  of  men  from  the  beginning  have 
been  linked  together  in  a  common  work.  This  work  may  be 
described  in  bulk  as  discovery  and  control  of  the  conditions 


THE    PROBLEMS    OF    SOCIOLOGY  105 

that  set  the  limits  to  satisfactioti  of  essential  human  interests. 
Few  men  have  known  much  about  this  central  fact,  and  in 
their  ignorance  they  have  modified  the  Hfe-process  only  in 
details.  Conscious  or  unconscious  of  their  connections  with 
each  other,  or  with  their  predecessors  and  successors,  or  of  the 
deeper  meaning  of  their  individual  strivings,  men  have 
endeavored,  primarily  each  for  himself,  but  always  to  some 
extent  in  combination  with  others,  to  accomplish  purposes  in 
which  all  have  unwittingly  had  something  in  common.  They 
have  thus  involuntarily  engaged  in  a  process,  in  which  each 
activity  of  each  individual  has  a  share  in  molding  the  condi- 
tions both  of  his  own  further  activities  and  of  the  further 
activities  of  all  other  individuals  within  the  circuit  of  associa- 
tion. As  no  man  liveth  unto  himself  alone,  still  less  are  the 
great  combinations  of  men's  actions  disconnected  with  each 
other.  Our  institutions  and  our  systems  of  conduct  —  eco- 
nomic, political,  moral,  artistic,  scientific,  religious  —  our  arts, 
our  customs,  our  laws,  our  languages,  our  traditions,  our 
social  forms,  our  superstitions,  our  prejudices,  our  vices,  and 
our  ideals,  in  short,  our  individual  traits  and  our  social  con- 
ditions, are  severally  and  collectively  functions  of  each  other.- 

The  problem  of  sociology  is  then  to  analyze  in  detail  all 
that  is  involved  in  this  general  proposition.  What  are  the 
literal  particulars  of  this  community  of  men  throughout  the 
ages?  Of  what  sort  are  the  forces  that  join  men's  destinies? 
What  are  the  conditions,  the  modes,  the  laws,  of  their  action? 
How  may  we  distinguish  between  the  constants  and  the 
variables  among  these  forces  ?  How  may  we  report  the  equi- 
librium of  these  forces  in  a  given  situation,  and  how  may  we 
foresee  resultants  of  forces?  How  may  we  detect,  and  dis- 
criminate, and  measure,  and  if  possible  control,  the  particular 
combinations  of  forces  in  our  own  society  ?  Regarding  human 
experience  as  a  whole,  how  may  we  mentally  resolve  it  into 
its  factors,  and  at  the  same  time  keep  effectively  in  view  the 
vital  interaction  of  the  factors  in  the  one  process? 

It  has  been  impossible  to  discuss  the  subjects  of  these 


io6  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

introductory  chapters  without  using  language  that  anticipates 
some  of  the  conclusions  of  the  next  following  chapters.  We 
cannot  properly  sketch  the  present  contents  of  general  soci- 
ology without  taking  account  of  two  schemes  for  interpreting 
society  which  have  prepared  the  way  for  our  present  methods. 
These  systems  are  already  in  some  respects  out  of  date.  Much 
of  the  language  used  in  our  discussion  thus  far  connotes  con- 
ceptions far  in  advance  of  those  involved  in  these  systems.  On 
the  other  hand,  these  attempts  to  interpret  society  have  made 
use  of  conceptions  which  form  easy,  if  not  utterly  necessary, 
transitions  from  unintegrated  knowledge  of  society  to  that 
acquaintance  with  the  whole  social  process  which  we  have 
described  as  our  goal.  More  than  this,  the  systems  in  question 
have  done  much  of  permanent  use  in  making  out  the  social 
process  as  it  is.  In  the  chapters  now  to  follow  we  shall  begin 
analysis  of  the  social  process  not  at  the  latest  stage  of  method 
that  has  been  reached.  We  shall  rather  approach  that  stage 
through  the  two  chief  preparatory  stages  that  have  occupied 
the  last  twenty-five  years. 


PART   II 

SOCIETY    CONSIDERED    AS    A    WHOLE    COMPOSED    OF 

DEFINITELY  ARRANGED  PARTS  (STRUCTURE) 

(An  Interpretation  of  Herbert  Spencer) 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  PLACE  OF  SPENCER  IN  SOCIOLOGY 

Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology,  Part  II,  "  The  Inductions  of  Soci- 
ology." 

In  order  to  see  society  in  the  light  in  which  it  presented 
itself  to  Spencer,  we  must  notice  two  or  three  decisive  steps  in 
his  thinking.  In  the  first  place,  he  came  rather  early  to  the 
conclusion  that  ordinary  theories  about  society  took  a  very 
partial  account  of  stock,  thus  omitting  important  items  of 
social  assets.  This  state  of  mind  is  betrayed  in  a  paragraph 
that  may  be  said  to  mark  an  era  in  social  consciousness : 

That  which  constitutes  History,  properly  so  called,  is  in  great  part 
omitted  from  works  on  this  subject.  Only  of  late  years  have  historians 
commenced  giving  us,  in  any  considerable  quantity,  the  truly  valuable 
information.  As  in  past  ages  the  king  was  everything  and  the  people 
nothing,  so  in  past  histories,  the  doings  of  the  king  fill  the  entire  picture, 
to  which  the  national  life  forms  but  an  obscure  background.  While  only 
now,  when  the  welfare  of  nations  rather  than  of  rulers  is  becoming  the 
dominant  idea,  are  historians  beginning  to  occupy  themselves  with  the 
phenomena  of  social  progress.  The  thing  it  really  concerns  us  to  know  is 
the  Natural  History  of  society.  We  want  all  facts  which  help  us  to  under- 
stand how  a  nation  has  grown  and  organized  itself.  Among  these,  let  us 
of  course  have  an  account  of  its  government;  with  as  little  as  may  be  of 
gossip  about  the  men  who  officered  it,  and  as  much  as  possible  about 
the  structure,  principles,  methods,  prejudices,  corruptions,  etc.,  which 
it  exhibited ;  and  let  this  account  include  not  only  the  nature  and  actions 
of  the  central  government,  but  also  those  of  local  governments,  down  to 
their  minutest  ramifications.  Let  us  of  course  have  a  parallel  description 
of  the  ecclesiastical  government  —  its  organization,  its  conduct,  its  power, 
its  relations  to  the  state;  and,  accompanying  this,  the  ceremonial,  creed, 
and  religious  ideas  —  not  only  those  nominally  believed,  but  those  really 
believed  and  acted  upon.  Let  us  at  the  same  time  be  informed  of  the 
control  exercised  by  class  over  class,  as  displayed  in  social  observances  — 
in  titles,  salutations,  and  forms  of  address.  Let  us  know,  too,  what  were 
all  the  other  customs  which  regulated  the  popular  life  out-of-doors  and 
indoors,  including  those  concerning  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  and  the 

109 


no  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

relations  of  parents  to  children.     The  superstitions,  also,  from  the  more 
important  myths  down  to  the  charms  in  common  use,  should  be  indicated. 
Next  should  come  a  delineation  of  the  industrial  system ;    showing  to  what 
extent   the    division   of   labor   was   carried;     how   trades    were   regulated, 
whether  by  caste,  guilds,  or  otherwise;    what  was  the  connection  between 
employers  and  employed;    what  were  the  agencies   for  distributing  com- 
modities ;    what  were  the  means  of  communication ;    what  was  the  circu- 
lating medium.     Accompanying  all  which,  should  be  given  an  account  of 
the  industrial   arts   technically  considered ;    stating  the  processes   in   use. 
and  the  quality  of  the  products.     Further,  the  intellectual  condition  of  the 
nation  in  its  various  grades  should  be  depicted ;    not  only  with  respect  to 
the  kind  and  amount  of  education,  but  with  respect  to  the  progress  made  in 
science,  and  the  prevailing  manner  of  thinking.     The  degree  of  aesthetic 
culture,    as    displayed    in    architecture,    sculpture,    painting,    dress,    music, 
poetry,  and  fiction,  should  be  described.     Nor  should  there  be  omitted  a 
sketch  of  the  daily  lives  of  the  people  —  their  food,  their  homes,  and  their 
amusements.     And,  lastly,  to  connect  the  whole,  should  be  exhibited  the 
morals,  theoretical  and  practical,  of  all  classes,  as  indicated  in  their  laws, 
habits,  proverbs,  deeds.    These  facts,  given  with  as  much  brevity  as  consists 
w'ith  clearness  and  accuracy,  should  be  so  grouped  and  arranged  that  they 
may  be  comprehended  in  their  ensemble,  and  contemplated   as   mutually 
dependent  parts  of  one  great  whole.    The  aim  should  be  so  to  present  them 
that  men  may  readily  trace  the  consensus  subsisting  among  them,  with  the 
view  of  learning  what  social  phenomena  coexist  with  what  others.     And 
then    the    corresponding    delineations    of    succeeding    ages    should    be    so 
managed,  as  to  show  how  each  belief,  institution,  custom  and  arrangement 
was  modified,  and  how  the  consensus  of  preceding  structures  and  functions 
was  developed  into  the  consensus  of  succeeding  ones.     Such  alone  is  the 
kind  of  information,  respecting  past  times,  which  can  be  of  service  to  the 
citizen   for  the  regulation  of  his  conduct.     The  only  History  that  is  of 
practical  value  is   what   may  be  called   Descriptive   Sociology.     And   the  / 
highest  office  which  the  historian  can  discharge  is  that  of  so  narrating  the  V 
lives  of  nations  as  to  furnish  materials  for  a  Comparative  Sociology,  and    [ 
for   the   subsequent    determination   of   the   ultimate    laws   to   which   social    j 
phenomena  conform.'  -^ 

Spencer  thus  voiced  a  view  which  suggested  itself  to  a  few 
others  at  alx)ut  the  same  time.  The  third  chapter  of  Macaulay's 
History  of  England,  for  instance  (1848),  and  the  whole  plan 

*  "  What  Knowledge  is  of  Most  Worth?  "  IVestminslcr  Review,  July,  1859  ; 
also  Education,  p.  34.  Cf.  schedule  of  needed  knowledge  in  terms  of  pur- 
pose, below,  p.  I  go- 


THE    PLACE   OF    SPENCER   IN    SOCIOLOGY  in 

of  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  illustrate  a  concep- 
tion that  is  no  longer  exceptional,  of  the  classes  of  details  which 
should  make  up  the  material  of  history.  Facts  that  throw  light 
upon  all  phases  of  life  should  be  included  in  the  historical 
picture. 

In  the  second  place,  the  forms  of  expression  that  Spencer 
uses  indicate  that,  when  he  planned  his  sociological  studies, 
the  proper  material  of  history  —  or,  as  he  would  phrase  it, 
"descriptive  sociology"  —  seemed  to  him  to  be  a  species  of 
details  to  be  ranged  side  by  side  or  in  series  in  a  regularly 
classified  exhibit.  He  spoke  of  connections  between  them,  and 
of  laws  governing  them;  yet  he  had  not  adjusted  his  views  of 
society  to  the  most  significant  elements  in  his  own  philosophy. 
Social  facts  were  to  him  as  the  plants  which  they  classified  were 
to  the  herbarium-making  botanists  of  his  generation.  To  him 
the  morphological  features  of  social  facts,  their  arrangement 
into  orders  and  genera  and  species,  their  side-by-sideness, 
rather  than  their  interworkings,  seemed  decisive.  Of  course, 
certain  perceptions  of  interrelations  between  the  groups  of 
social  facts  are  in  evidence  in  everything  that  he  wrote.  These 
perceptions,  however,  played  at  first  a  quite  subordinate  role 
in  his  program  as  a  collector  and  classifier  of  social  material. 
Indeed,  the  place  assigned  in  this  syllabus  to  Spencer's  work  as 
a  sociologist  is  determined  by  the  judgment  that  he  never 
entirely  outgrew  the  habit  of  treating  social  facts  in  statical 
categories  imposed  by  the  mind,  instead  of  pressing  on  to  view 
them  in  the  dynamic  relations  in  which  they  actually  occur. 
This  judgment  was  reached  after  study  of  Spencer's  system 
during  a  quarter-century.  It  was  curiously  confirmed  by  his 
own  account  of  the  way  in  which  the  Descriptive  Sociology  and 
the  Principles  of  Sociology  took  shape.^ 

In  the  third  place,  the  clue  to  social  cause  and  efifect  upon 
which  Spencer  worked  was  that  social  structures  are  the  cause    ^ 
of  coexisting  social  conditions.     Without  trying  to  decide  at 
present  how  much  truth  there  is  in  this  view,  it  is  worth  while 
to  point  out  that  he  took  no  proper  account  of  the  possibility 

'  Vide  Autobiography,  Vol.  II,  pp.  200  ff.,  305  ff.,  339  ff. 


112  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

that  both  conditions  and  structures  may  have  been  the  effect  of 
antecedent  causes.  That  coexistent  structures  accounted  for 
each  other,  rather  than  that  they  both  called  for  explanation 
in  antecedent  conditions,  was  the  theory  which  his  forms  of 
statement  imply.     For  instance,  he  says : 

To  have  before  us,  in  manageable  form,  evidence  proving  the  corre- 
lations which  everywhere  exist  between  great  militant  activity  and  the 
degradation  of  women,  between  a  despotic  form  of  government  and 
elaborate  ceremonial  in  social  intercourse,  between  relatively  peaceful 
social  activities  and  the  relaxation  of  coercive  institutions,  promises 
furtherance  of  human  welfare  in  a  much  greater  degree  than  does  learning 
whether  the  story  of  Alfred  and  the  cakes  is  a  fact  or  a  myth,  whether 
Queen  Elizabeth  intrigued  with  Essex  or  not,  where  Prince  Charles  hid 
himself,  and  what  were  the  details  of  this  battle  or  that  siege  —  pieces  of 
historical  gossip  which  cannot  in  the  least  affect  men's  conceptions  of  the 
ways  in  which  social  phenomena  hang  together,  or  aid  them  in  shaping 
their  public  conduct.' 

In  taking  this  position  Spencer  was  far  in  advance  of  his 
time;  but  in  order  to  discover  radical  differences  which  dis- 
tinguish conceptions  of  society  that  look  very  much  alike,  we 
must  notice  his  limitations. 

In  the  fourth  place,  then,  we  must  add  a  general  criticism 
of  the  method  which  Spencer  adopted.  The  idea  of  social 
causation  was  fundamental  in  his  thinking.  At  the  same  time, 
the  notion  of  social  structure  was  dominant.  The  latter  so 
prejudiced  the  former  that  advance  toward  discovery  of  the 
actual  correlation  of  cause  and  effect  among  social  phenomena 
was  relatively  slow.  The  Spencerian  analysis  of  society 
remained  essentially  static. 

This  lack  in  Spencer's  conception  and  method  is  naively 
betrayed  a  few  pages  later.     He  says : 

Up  to  this  time  [1876]  the  programme  of  the  synthetic  philosophy, 
issued  in  i860,  had  been  in  all  respects  adhered  to ;  but  now  it  became 
clear  that  an  addition  must  be  made.  I  had,  as  most  do,  approached  the 
subject  of  sociology  on  its  political  side,  and  though,  when  its  divisions 
were  set  down,  there  was  a  clear  recognition  of  sundry  other  sides  —  the 
ecclesiastical,  the  industrial,  and  so  forth  —  yet  all  of  these  may  be  dis- 

•  Loc.  cit.,  p.  309. 


THE   PLACE   OF   SPENCER   IN    SOCIOLOGY  113 

tinguished  as  the  public  sides  of  the  subject.  Sociology  in  fact,  as  we 
ordinarily  conceive  it,  is  concerned  exclusively  with  the  phenomena  result- 
ing from  the  co-operation  of  citizens.  But  now,  when  about  to  deal  with 
institutions  of  this  or  that  kind,  /  suddenly  became  aware  that  domestic 
institutions  had  to  be  dealt  with*  It  was  not  that  I  accepted  in  full  the 
views  of  Sir  Henry  Maine;  for  my  studies  of  primitive  societies  had 
familiarized  me  with  the  truths  that  the  patriarchal  form  of  family  is  not 
the  earliest,  and  that  the  relations  of  parents  to  one  another  and  to  chil- 
dren have  sundry  more  archaic  forms.  But  I  became  conscious  that  these 
more  archaic  forms,  as  well  as  the  more  developed  form  supposed  by  him 
to  be  universal,  influence  deeply  the  type  of  social  organization  assumed. 
Further  reflection  made  it  clear  that,  intrinsically  as  well  as  extrinsically, 
the  traits  of  its  family  life  form  an  important  group  [sic!]  in  the  traits 
presented  by  each  society;  and  that  a  great  omission  had  been  made  in 
ignoring  them.' 

•  This  confession  is  astonishing.  To  one  who  is  familiar 
with  the  recent  literature  of  sociology,  such  limitation  of  view 
is  as  first  glance  incredible.  It  is  as  though  a  man  should  under- 
take to  write  a  genetic  account  of  a  world's  exposition,  and 
after  he  had  arranged  his  schedules  of  groups,  and  buildings, 
and  exhibits,  he  should  "suddenly"  become  aware  that  he  had 
overlooked  exhibitors  and  factories  and  workmen  and  sources 
of  production. 

On  second  thought  there  is  nothing  in  the  admission  that 
should  surprise  anyone  acquainted  with  Spencer's  system.  His- 
method  was  to  compare  exhibits  that  societies  display;  not  to 
detect  the  process  through  which  they  develop.  It  is  a  method 
which  might  permit  a  botanist  to  compare  the  parts  of  plants 
without  thinking  to  inquire  about  their  vital  connection  with 
the  soil.  It  is  a  method  which  would  permit  the  zoologist  to  be 
content  with  descriptions  of  species,  without  bothering  himself 
about  the  origin  of  species.  It  is  a  method  essentially  descrip- 
tive, rather  than  explanatory.  It  is  not  guaranteed,  therefore, 
against  misplacing  of  emphasis  throughout  the  description. 

Spencer's  Descriptive  Sociology  is  a  classified  digest  of  the 
institutional  phenomena  presented  by  the  nations  of  which 
the  eight  parts  respectively  treat.    The  Principles  of  Sociology 

*  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  339,  340.  °  The  italics  are  mine. 


114  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

is  an  attempt  to  organize  this  and  similar  material  into  an 
explanation  of  society,  under  the  heads : 

1.  Domestic  Institutions. 

2.  Ceremonial  Institutions. 

3.  Political  Institutions. 

4.  Ecclesiastical  Institutions. 

5.  Professional  Institutions. 

6.  Industrial  Institutions. 

The  failure  to  accomplish  explanation  in  the  end  is  for  a 
reason  not  very  different  from  the  reason  why  the  stock  of 
goods  in  a  department  store  is  not  an  economic  system.  In 
either  case  the  evidence  in  sight  is  merely  an  assortment  of  the 
material  to  be  explained.     It  is  not  the  explanation  itself. 

Yet  for  a  quarter-century  the  Spencerian  program  of  soci- 
ology has  probably  appealed  to  more  people  than  any  other. 
As  we  have  intimated  above,  this  is  probably  not  altogether  an 
accident.  On  the  contrary,  we  may  say  not  only  that  the 
Spencerian  sociology  has  done  good  service  as  a  medium 
between  two  historical  stages  in  the  development  of  the  science, 
but  that  the  method  which  it  employs  will  prove  to  be  a  neces- 
sary medium  between  stages  of  development  in  the  power  of 
generalization  in  the  individual  mind.  It  is  certain  that  we 
cannot  think  society  as  it  is,  without  using  structural  forms  as 
one  factor  in  the  composite  picture.  It  may  be  that  there  are 
periods  in  our  mental  history  when  the  best  thinking  which  we 
can  do  about  society  will  attach  excessive  importance  to  these 
structural  conceptions.  At  all  events,  some  use  of  the  Spen- 
cerian version  of  society  is  unavoidable  at  present.  We  treat 
it,  therefore,  not  as  a  passing  phase  of  social  theory,  but  as  a 
partial  view  which  must  be  assimilated  in  our  final  rendering 
of  the  social  process. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SPENCER'S  ANALYSIS  OF  SOCIETY' 
I.      WHAT  IS   A   SOCIETY? 

1.  A  society  is  an  entity;  i.  e.,  though  formed  of  discrete 
units,  a  certain  concreteness  in  the  aggregate  of  them  is  imphed 
by  the  general  persistence  of  the  arrangements  among  them 
throughout  the  area  occupied.     [212]^ 

2.  Since  the  attributes  of  a  society  are  hke  those  of  a  Hving 
body,  we  have  now  to  consider  reasons  for  saying  that  the 
permanent  relations  among  the  parts  of  a  society  are  analogous 
with  the  permanent  relations  amdng  the  parts  of  a  living 
bo^y.     [213] 

II.      A  SOCIETY  IS  AN  ORGANISM 

3.  The  first  reason  for  thinking  of  a  society  as  an  organism 
is  that  it  undergoes  growth.     [214] 

4.  As  a  society  grows,  its  parts  become  unlike;  it  shows 
increase  of  structure.       [215] 

5.  This  likeness  will  be  more  evident,  if  we  observe  that 
progressive  differentiation  of  social  structures  is  accompanied 
by  progressive  differentiation  of  social  functions.     [216] 

6.  The  functions  are  not  simply  different ;  their  differences 
have  relations  that  make  one  another  possible.  This  reciprocal 
aid  amounts  to  mutual  dependence  of  the  parts.  The  mutually 
dependent  parts  live  by  and  for  one  another,  and  thus  form  an 
aggregate  on  the  same  general  principle  as  an  individual  organ- 
ism. In  respect  of  this  fundamental  trait,  a  social  organism 
and  an  individual  organism  are  entirely  alike.     [217] 

*  The  method  is  condensed  into  a  summary  exposition  in  Principles  of 
Sociology,  Book  II,  "  The  Inductions  of  Sociology." 

'  The  numbers  in  brackets  at  end  of  paragraphs  refer  to  sections  in 
Principles  of  Sociology,  American  edition,  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1888. 

IIS 


ii6  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

7.  We  see  still  more  clearly  how  the  combined  actions  of 
mutually  dependent  parts  form  the  life  of  the  whole;  and  how 
a  parallelism  results  between  social  life  and  animal  life,  when 
we  observe  that  the  life  of  every  visible  organism  is  made  up 
by  the  lives  of  units  too  minute  to  be  seen  by  the  unaided  eye. 
On  thus  seeing  that  an  ordinary  living  organism  may  be 
regarded  as  a  nation  of  units  which  live  individually,  and  have 
many  of  them  considerable  degrees  of  independence,  we  have 
the  less  difficulty  in  regarding  a  nation  of  human  beings  as  an 
organism.     [218] 

8.  The  relation  between  the  lives  of  the  units  and  the  life 
of  the  aggregate  has  a  further  likeness  in  the  two  cases.  A 
catastrophe  may  destroy  the  life  of  the  aggregate  without  at 
once  destroying  the  lives  of  all  its  units ;  on  the  other  hand,  if 
no  catastrophe  occurs,  the  life  of  the  aggregate  is  far  longer 
than  the  live^  of  the  units.  The  life  of  the  whole  is  unlike  the 
lives  of  the  units;  but  it  is  produced  by  them.     [219] 

9.  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  notice  an  extreme  unlikeness 
between  the  social  organism  and  the  individual  organism.  The 
parts  of  an  animal  form  a  concrete  whole ;  the  parts  of  a  society 
form  a  discrete  whole.  The  units  composing  the  one  are  bound 
together  in  close  contact ;  the  units  composing  the  other  are 
free,  they  are  not  in  contact,  they  may  even  be  widely  dis- 
persed.    [220] 

10.  What  becomes,  then,  of  the  parallelism?  It  is  pre- 
served by  means  of  the  agencies  of  co-operation  between  the 
units  of  society.  These  are  the  languages  of  the  emotions  and 
of  the  intellect.  In  consequence  of  their  action,  the  social 
aggregate,  though  discrete  instead  of  concrete,  is  rendered  a 
living  whole.     [221] 

11.  We  must  state  a  cardinal  difference  between  the  two 
kinds  of  organisms.  In  the  one,  consciousness  is  concentrated 
in  a  small  part  of  the  aggregate.  In  the  other,  it  is  diffused 
throughout  the  aggregate;  all  the  units  possess  capacities  for 
happiness   and   misery   in   approximately  equal   degrees.      As 


SPENCER'S  ANALYSIS  OF  SOCIETY  117 

there  is  no  social  sensorium,  the  welfare  of  the  aggregate,  con- 
sidered apart  from  that  of  the  uniis,  is  not  an  end  to  be  sought. 
The  society  exists  for  the  benefit  of  its  members;  not  its  mem- 
bers for  the  benefit  of  the  society.     [222] 

12.  Having  thus  considered,  in  their  most  general  forms, 
the  reasons  for  regarding  a  society  as  an  organism,  we  are 
prepared  to  follow  out  the  comparison  in  detail.     [223] 

III.      SOCIAL  GROWTH 

13.  Societies,  like  living  bodies;  begin  as  germs.  That  is, 
they  originate  from  masses  which  are  extremely  minute  com- 
pared with  the  size  to  which  some  of  them  grow.     [224] 

14.  The  growths  in  aggregates  of  different  classes  are 
extremely  various  in  their  amounts.     [225] 

15.  In  each  case,  too,  size  increases  in  two  ways,  which  go 
on  sometimes  separately,  sometimes  together.  There  is,  first, 
enlargement  of  the  group  by  simple  multiplication  of  units; 
there  is,  second,  increase  by  union  of  groups,  and  further  by 
union  of  groups  of  groups.^     [226] 

16.  Organic  growth  and  super-organic  growth  have  yet 
another  analogy ;  viz. :  integration  is  displayed  both  in  the 
formation  of  a  larger  mass,  and  in  progress  of  the  mass  toward 
coherence  due  to  closeness  of  parts.     [227] 

IV.     SOCIAL    STRUCTURE 

17.  In  societies,  as  in  living  bodies,  increase  of  mass  is 
usually  accompanied  by  increase  of  structure.  As  we  progress 
from  smaller  to  larger,  from  simple  to  compound,  from  com- 
pound to  doubly  compound  groups,  the  unlikeness  of  parts 
increases.  The  social  aggregate,  homogeneous  when  minute, 
gains  in  heterogeneity  along  with  each  increment  of  growth. 
To  reach  great  size,  there  must  be  great  complexity.     [228] 

18.  Unlikeness  of  parts  due  to  development  of  the  co-ordi- 
nating agencies  is  followed  by  unlikeness  among  agencies 
co-ordinated  —  the  organs   of  alimentation,   etc.,   in   the   one 

'Cf.  Biology,  §§  180-21 1. 


Ii8  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

case,  and  the  industrial  structures  in  the  other.  The  Hke  parts 
being  permanently  held  together,  mutual  dependence  becomes 
possible ;  and  along  with  growing  mutual  dependence  the  parts 
grow  unlike.     [229] 

19.  In  both  cases  these  differentiations  proceed  from  the 
more  general  to  the  more  special.  First,  broad  and  simple 
contrasts  of  parts;  then,  within  each  of  the  parts  primarily 
contrasted,  changes  which  make  unlike  divisions  of  them; 
then,  within  each  of  these  unlike  divisions,  minor  unlikenesses; 
and  so  on.  Transformation  of  the  homogeneous  into  the  hetero- 
geneous characterizes  the  evolution  of  individual  and  social 
organisms  in  especially  high  degrees.     [230] 

20.  Organs  in  animals  and  organs  in  societies  have  internal 
arrangements  framed  on  the  same  principle.  Each  viscus  con- 
tains appliances  for  conveying  nutriment  to  its  parts,  for  bring- 
ing it  materials  on  which  to  operate,  for  carrying  away  the 
product,  for  draining  off  waste  matters ;  as  also  for  regulating 
its  activity.  It  is  the  same  in  society.  The  clustered  citizens 
forming  an  organ  which  produces  some  commodity  for  national 
use,  or  which  otherwise  satisfies  national  wants,  has  subservient 
structures,  substantially  like  those  of  each  other  organ  carrying 
on  each  other  function.     [231] 

21.  One  more  structural  analogy  must  be  cited.  In  ani- 
mals of  low  types,  no  organs,  properly  speaking,  exist ;  only 
a  number  of  units  not  yet  aggregated  into  an  organ.  The 
social  analogue  is  that  incipient  form  of  an  industrial  structure 
in  which  each  worker  carries  on  his  occupation  alone,  and  dis- 
poses of  his  own  products  to  consumers. 

Corresponding  to  the  second  type  of  individual  organ  —  the 
compact  cluster  of  cells  —  is  the  social  type  composed  of  the 
related  families  who  formerly  monopolized  each  industry,  and 
formed  a  cluster  habitually  occupying  the  same  locality. 

A  third  stage  of  the  analogy  may  be  traced;  viz. :  In  case 
of  the  increase  of  a  glandular  organ,  because  of  the  more  active 
functions  of  a  more  developed  animal,  the  change  of  bulk  occa- 


SPENCER'S  ANALYSIS  OF  SOCIETY  119 

sions  change  of  structure.     The  social  parallel  is  the  change 
from  solitary  to  organized  vocations.     [232] 

22.  The  final  phase  of  these  structural  analogies  is  still 
more  striking.  In  both  cases  there  is  a  contrast  between  the 
original  mode  of  development  and  a  later  mode.  The  stages 
of  evolution  are  greatly  abridged,  and  organs  are  produced 
by  relatively  direct  processes.  Still  further,  entire  organs, 
which,  in  the  serial  genesis  of  the  type,  came  comparatively 
late,  come  comparatively  soon  in  the  growth  both  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  of  society.     [2^^] 

V.     SOCIAL    FUNCTIONS 

23.  We  now  come  to  functional  traits  not  manifestly 
implied  by  traits  of  structure.     [234] 

24.  As  evolution  progresses,  the  consensus  of  functions  in 
the  individual  and  the  social  organism  becomes  closer.  In  low 
aggregates,  both  individual  and  social,  the  actions  of  the  parts 
are  but  little  dependent  on  one  another.  In  developed  aggre- 
gates of  both  kinds  the  life-process  as  a  whole  makes  possible 
the  lives  of  the  parts.     [235] 

25.  Another  corollary  must  be  stated :  In  a  slightly  differ- 
entiated organism  the  parts  may  easily  exchange  functions.  In 
a  highly  differentiated  organism  this  substitution  is  difficult  or 
impossible.    So  in  society.     [236] 

26.  With  the  advance  of  organization,  every  part,  more 
limited  in  its  office,  performs  its  office  better,  and  the  total 
activity  which  we  call  life,  individual  or  national,  augments 
with  it.     [237] 

VI.    SYSTEMS  OF  ORGANS 

2y.  Individual  organisms  and  social  organisms  begin  their 
development  in  like  ways.     [237a] 

28.  We  have  described  ^  the  primary  organic  differentia- 
tions which  arise  in  correspondence  with  the  primary  contrasts 
of  conditions  among  the  parts,  as  outer  and  inner.  Early 
stages,  analogous  in  principle,  occur  in  the  evolution  of  social 

*  First  Principles,  §§  149-52,  and  Biology,  §§287-89. 


120  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

organisms.  For  instance,  there  are  masters,  who,  as  warriors, 
carry  on  offensive  and  defensive  activities,  and  thus  stand  in  a 
pecuHar  relation  to  environing  agencies ;  then  there  are  slaves, 
who  carry  on  inner  activities  for  sustentation,  primarily  of 
their  masters,  and  secondarily  of  themselves.     [238] 

29.  In  both  individual  and  social  organisms,  after  the  outer 
and  inner  systems  have  been  differentiated,  the  distributing 
system,  between  the  two,  begins  to  develop  and  promotes  their 
co-operation.  The  lowest  social  types  have  no  distributing- 
systems —  no  roads  or  traders  exist.  The  two  original  classes 
are  in  contact.  With  localization  of  industries,  devices  for 
transferring  commodities  begin  to  appear,     [239] 

30.  These  systems  arise  in  the  social  organism  in  the  same 
order  as  in  the  individual  organism,  and  for  the  same  reasons. 
Where  society  consists  only  of  a  class  of  masters  and  a  class  of 
slaves  in  direct  contact,  an  appliance  for  transferring  products 
has  no  place.  A  larger  society,  with  functional  classes  and 
industrial  centers,  not  only  may  but  must  develop  a  transferring 
system.     [240] 

VII.    THE  SUSTAINING  SYSTEM 

31.  The  parts  carrying  on  alimentation  in  a  living  body, 
and  the  parts  carrying  on  productive  industries  in  the  body 
politic,  constitute,  in  either  case,  a  sustaining  system.     [241] 

32.  There  is  a  further  common  trait.  Alimentary  struc- 
tures differentiate  and  develop  in  a  manner  different  from 
that  followed  by  regulating  structures.  In  the  lower  Annulosa 
the  segments,  or  societies,  repeat  one  another's  structure.  In 
the  higher  Annulosa  organs  have  appeared  which  no  longer 
repeat  the  structure  of  the  somites.  In  like  manner,  in  a  large 
society  built  up  from  smaller  societies  industrial  structures,  for 
example,  may  extend  themselves  without  reference  to  political 
divisions.     [242] 

33.  This  community  of  traits  between  the  developments  of 
sustaining  structures  in  an  individual  organism  and  in  a  social 


SPENCER'S  ANALYSIS  OF  SOCIETY  I2l 

organism  requires  to  be  expressed  apart  from  detail,  before  its 
full  meaning  can  be  seen. 

In  brief,  material  environment,  yielding  consumable  things 
in  various  degrees  and  with  various  advantages,  determines 
industrial  differentiations;  on  the  contrary,  material  environ- 
ment does  not  have  an  equal  influence  upon  the  evolution  of 
regulative  or  governmental  structures,     [243] 

VIII.     THE    DISTRIBUTING    SYSTEM 

34.  Next  in  order  are  parallelisms  between  the  individual 
and  the  social  distributing  systems,  in  their  successive  stages. 

[244] 

35.  In  neither  case  are  channels  of  communication  or 
devices  for  transfer  necessary,  so  long  as  there  is  little  differen- 
tiation of  parts,  or  while  unlike  parts  are  in  close  contact. 
After  division  of  labor,  organic  or  social,  has  developed,  both 
types  of  systems  have  to  be  produced  in  each  case.     [245] 

36.  The  parallel  holds  not  merely  between  the  structures  in 
the  two  cases,  but  also  between  the  movements  that  take  place 
by  means  of  them.  Thus,  in  animals  of  low  types  there  is  only 
slow  and  irregular  diffusion  through  the  tissues;  in  primitive 
societies  only  a  small  amount  of  barter.  Social  circulation 
progresses  from  feeble,  slow,  irregular  movements  to  a  rapid, 
regular,  and  powerful  pulse.     [246] 

37.  We  find  other  analogies  if  we  turn  from  the  channels 
of  communication,  and  the  movements  among  them,  to  the  cir- 
culating currents  themselves.  There  is  variation  in  the  com- 
position of  the  fluids  that  nourish  low  and  high  types  respec- 
tively, and  of  the  commodities  exchanged  in  types  of  society. 
In  both  cases  relative  simplicity  is  joined  with  crudity,  and 
relative  complexity  with  elaboration.  In  each  case  also  there 
is  a  drawing  from  the  circulation  current  for  use,  and  a  return 
of  some  appropriate  contribution  to  the  current;  and,  finally, 
there  is  competition  in  the  two  cases,  appropriation  taking  place 
in  each  instance  in  approximate  proportion  to  performance  of 
function.     [247] 


122  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

38.  Of  course,  along  with  these  Hkenesses  there  go  differ- 
ences, due  to  the  contrast  between  the  concreteness  of  an 
individual  organism  and  the  discreteness  of  a  social  organism. 
These  differences  merely  qualify  the  essential  likenesses.  The 
main  truth  is  that  the  distributing  system,  in  both  organisms, 
has  its  development  determined  by  the  necessities  of  transfer 
among  interdependent  parts.  Lying  between  the  two  original 
systems  which  carry  on  respectively  the  outer  dealings  with 
surrounding  existences,  and  the  inner  dealings  with  materials 
required  for  sustentation,  its  structure  becomes  adapted  to  the 
requirements  of  this  carrying  function  between  the  two  great 
systems  as  wholes,  and  between  the  subdivisions  of  each. 
[248] 

IX.    THE  REGULATING  SYSTEM 

39.  We  have  seen  how  the  evolution  of  interior  structures 
(alimentary  systems  in  one  case,  and  industrial  systems  in  the 
other)  is  determined  by  the  natures  and  distributions  of  the 
materials  with  which  they  are  in  contact.  We  have  now  to 
see  how  the  evolution  of  the  structures  carrying  on  outer 
actions  (nervo-motor  in  the  one  case,  and  governmental -mili- 
tary in  the  other)  are  developed  into  fitness  for  conflict  with 
other  aggregates.     [249] 

40.  Successive  improvements  of  the  organs  of  sense  and 
motion,  and  of  the  internal  co-ordinating  apparatus  which 
uses  them,  have  indirectly  resulted  from  the  antagonisms  and 
competitions  of  organisms  with  one  another.  Analogously, 
wars  between  societies  originate  governmental  structures,  and 
are  causes  of  improvements  in  those  structures  that  increase 
the  efficiency  of  group  action  against  environing  societies. 
The  inference  is  that,  as  in  the  individual  organism  the  nervo- 
muscular  apparatus  which  carries  on  conflict  with  environing 
organisms  begins  with,  and  is  developed  by,  that  conflict;  so 
the  governmental-military  organization  of  a  society  is  initiated 
by,  and  evolves  along  with,  the  warfare  between  societies. 
More  precisely,  that  part  of  its  governmental  organization  is 


SPENCER'S  ANALYSIS  OF  SOCIETY  123 

thus  evolved  which  conduces  to  efficient  co-operation  against 
other  societies.     [250] 

41.  The  subordination  of  local  governing^  centers  to  a 
general  governing  center  accompanies  co-operation  of  the 
components  of  the  compound  aggregate  in  its  conflict  with 
other  like  aggregates.  So  long  as  the  subordination  is  estab- 
lished by  internal  conflict  of  the  divisions  with  one  another, 
and  hence  involves  antagonism  among  them,  it  remains 
unstable ;  but  it  tends  toward  stability  in  proportion  as  the  reg- 
ulating agents,  major  or  minor,  habitually  combine  their  action 
against  external  enemies.  We  have  to  note  chiefly,  however, 
that  in  the  compound  regulating  systems  evolved  during  the 
formation  of  a  compound  social  aggregate,  what  were  origi- 
nally independent  local  centers  of  regulation  became  dependent 
local  centers,  serving  as  deputies  under  command  of  the  gen- 
eral center,  just  as  the  local  ganglia  become  agents  acting 
under  direction  of  the  cephalic  ganglia.     [251] 

42.  In  both  individual  and  social  organisms  this  formation 
of  a  compound  regulating  system,  characterized  by  a  domi- 
nant center  and  subordinate  centers,  is  accompanied  by  increas- 
ing size  and  complexity  of  the  dominant  center.  Further,  as  in 
nervous  evolution,  after  a  certain  complication  of  the  directive 
and  executive  centers  is  reached,  deliberative  systems  begin  to 
grow  and  eventually  predominate;  so,  in  political  evolution, 
those  assemblies  which  contemplate  the  remoter  results  of 
political  actions,  beginning  as  small  additions  to  the  central 
governing  agency,  outgrow  the  rest.  There  are  also  minor 
analogies  incidental  to  these  developments.     [252] 

43.  For  co-ordinating  the  actions  of  an  aggregate,  indi- 
vidual or  social,  there  must  be  not  only  a  governing  center,  but 
there  must  also  be  media  of  communication  through  which 
this  center  may  affect  the  parts.  Ascending  stages  of  animal 
organization  carry  us  from  types  in  which  this  requirement 
is  scarcely  at  all  fulfilled,  to  types  in  which  it  is  fulfilled 
effectually.  Analogous  stages  in  social  evolution  are  suffi- 
ciently evident.     Slow  propagation  of  impulses  from  unit  to 


124  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

unit  throughout  a  society  in  its  early  stage  becomes,  as  we 
advance,  more  rapid  propagation  along  settled  lines.  Quick 
and  definitely  adjusted  combinations  thereby  become  possible. 
It  was  pointed  out  (§221)  that  social  units,  though  forming  a 
discontinuous  aggregate,  achieve  by  language  a  transmission 
of  impulses  which,  in  individual  aggregates,  is  achieved  by 
nerves.  But  now,  utilizing  the  molecular  continuity  of  wires, 
the  impulses  are  conveyed  throughout  the  body  politic  much 
faster  than  they  would  be  were  it  a  solid  living  whole.     [253] 

44.  There  is  one  other  remarkable  and  important  parallel- 
ism. In  both  kinds  of  organisms  the  regulating  system,  during 
evolution,  divides  into  two  systems,  to  which  a  third  partially 
independent  system  is  finally  added.  The  differentiations 
of  these  systems  have  common  causes  in  the  two  cases.  The 
general  law  of  organization  is  that  distinct  duties  entail  distinct 
structures.  The  implication  is  that  if  the  function  of  regula- 
tion falls  into  two  divisions  which  are  widely  unlike,  the  regu- 
lating apparatus  will  differentiate  into  correspondingly  unlike 
parts,  carrying  on  their  unlike  functions  in  great  measure  inde- 
pendently. We  shall  find  that  this  is  the  case,  both  in  the 
individual  and  the  social  organism.  In  the  latter  we  find  the 
distinct  structures  for  external  conflict,  for  sustentation,  and 
for  supplying  credit  in  advance  of  performance  of  function 
(banks).     [254] 

45.  Co-operation  being  in  either  case  impossible  without 
means  of  adjustment  between  the  parts,  it  thus  inevitably 
happens  that  there  arises  a  regulating  system  in  the  body 
politic  as  in  the  living  body.  Within  itself  this  system  differ- 
entiates as  the  sets  of  organs  evolve.     [255] 

X.     SOCIAL    TYPES    AND    CONSTITUTIONS 

46.  Societies  may  be  arranged,  primarily,  according  to 
their  degrees  of  composition,  as  simple,  compound,  doubly 
compound,  trebly  compound,  and.  secondarily,  though  in  a  less 
specific  way,  into  the  predominantly  militant  and  the  predomi- 
nantly industrial.     [256] 


SPENCER'S  ANALYSIS  OF  SOCIETY  125 

47.  "This  classification  of  societies  constitutes  an  impor- 
tant contribution  to  ethnography,  as  we  have  only  to  glance 
over  the  tables  to  determine  the  true  social  position  of  any 
given  tribe  or  race."'* 

48.  We  cannot  in  all  cases  say  with  precision  what  con- 
stitutes a  simple  society.  Our  only  course  is  to  regard  as  a 
simple  society,  one  which  forms  a  single  working  whole,  unsub- 
jected  to  any  other,  and  of  which  the  parts  co-operate,  with  or 
without  a  regulating  center,  for  certain  public  ends.  We  may 
classify  compound  societies  in  accordance  with  the  degree  of 
stability  of  headship  over  the  composite  group.  As  marks  of 
doubly  compound  societies  we  may  name :  first,  they  are  com- 
pletely settled;  second,  there  is  usually  a  more  elaborate  and 
stringent  political  organization;  third,  there  is  likely  to  be  a 
developed  ecclesiastical  hierarchy;  fourth,  there  is  increased 
definiteness  of  industrial,  legal,  religious,  municipal,  and  intel- 
lectual institutions.  The  remaining  group,  containing  the 
great  civilized  nations,  are  the  trebly  compound,  to  be  subdi- 
vided into  the  ancient,  distinguished  as  unstable,  and  the 
modern,  to  be  called,  with  possible  exceptions,  stable. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  stages  of  compounding  and  recom- 
pounding  have  to  be  passed  through  in  succession.     [257] 

49.  We  must  now  consider  the  classification  based  on 
unlikeness  of  predominant  social  activity,  and  on  resulting 
unlikeness  of  organization.  The  two  social  types  thus  essen- 
tially contrasted  are  the  militant  and  the  industrial.  The  dis- 
tinction is  not  absolute,  but  relative.  Nearly  all  societies  are 
in  a  state  of  transition  between  one  extreme  and  the  other.  We 
may  yet  clearly  distinguisli  the  constitutional  traits  of  these 
opposite  types,  characterized  by  predominance  of  the  outer  and 
inner  systems  respectively.     [258] 

50.  In  the  militant  type  the  army  is  the  nation  mobilized,  v 
while  the  nation  is  the  quiescent  army.    The  type  consequently 
acquires  a  structure  common  to  army  and  nation.     We  must 
note  in  detail  this  parallelism  between  the  military  organization 
and  the  social  organization  at  large. 

"Ward,  Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.   I,  p.   210. 


126  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

■"  First,  there  is  in  both  cases  coitraliced  control;  second, 
there  is  union  of  command  for  war  and  peace  in  one  person ; 
third,  absoluteness  of  the  commander-in-chief  is  continued  by 
each  subordinate  grade  toward  the  grades  below,  and  is 
repeated  in  the  accompanying  social  arrangements;  fourth, 
the  religion  has  a  like  militant  character;  fifth,  the  ecclesi- 
astical organization  reproduces  the  military  order;  sixth,  a 
similar  kind  of  government  may  be  traced  in  the  sustaining 
organization;  seventh,  in  militant  societies,  not  industry  only, 
but  life  at  large,  is  subject  to  kindred  discipline;  eighth,  this 
structure  is  associated  with  the  belief  that  its  members  exist 
for  the  benefit  of  the  whole,  and  not  the  whole  for  the  benefit 
of  its  members ;  ninth,  the  co-operation  by  which  the  life  of  the 
militant   society   is   sustained,    is   a  compulsory   co-operation. 

[259] 

51.  The  traits  orf  the  industrial  type  have  to  be  generalized 

from  inadequate  and  entangled  data.     We  have  to  base  our 

conception  on  what  we  find  in  the  few  simple  societies  which 

have  been  habitually  peaceful,  and  in  the  advanced  compound 

societies  which,  though  once  habitually  militant,  have  become 

gradually  less  so. 

In  the  latter  class  the  relation  l^etween  a  social  regime  pre- 
dominantly industrial  and  a  less  coercive  form  of  rule,  is  shown 
by  the  Hanse  towns,  by  the  towns  of  the  Low  Countries  out  of 
which  the  Dutch  Republic  arose,  and  in  high  degrees  by  Great 
Britain,  including  the  colonies,  and  the  United  States. 

Referring  to  England  in  especial,  we  note  the  following 
particulars :  First,  while  wars  have  become  less  frequent  and 
more  distant,  and  while  agriculture,  manufactures,  and  com- 
merce have  grown,  there  has  been  a  development  of  free  politi- 
cal institutions ;  second,  there  has  been  a  parallel  change  in  the 
form  of  ecclesiastical  government;  third,  the  industrial  organi- 
zation itself  shows  especially  this  change  of  structure;  fourth, 
sentiments  and  ideas  concerning  the  relations  between  the  citi- 
zen and  the  State  undergo  corresponding  change;  tifth,  it 
becomes  a  duty  to  resist  irresponsible  government,  and  also  to 


SPENCER'S  ANALYSIS  OF  SOCIETY  127 

resist  the  excesses  of  responsible  government;  sixth,  particu- 
larly the  belief  arises  that  the  combined  actions  of  the  social 
aggregate  have  for  their  end  to  maintain  the  conditions  under 
which  individual  lives  may  be  satisfactorily  carried  on,  in  place 
of  the  old  belief  that  individual  lives  have  for  their  end  the 
maintenance  of  the  aggregate's  combined  actions ;  seventh, 
the  co-operation  by  which  the  multiform  activities  of  the  society 
are  carried  on,  becomes  a  voluntary  co-operation.      [260] 

52.  The  essential  traits  of  these  two  social  types  are  in 
most  cases  obscured.  The  production  of  structures  character- 
izing one  or  other  of  these  opposed  types  has  therefore  been 
furthered,  hindered,  or  modified  in  many  ways.  Among  these 
variants  we  may  name :  the  deeply  organized  character  of  the 
particular  race;  the  effect  due  to  the  immediately  preceding 
mode  of  life  and  social  type ;  the  peculiarities  of  the  habitat ; 
the  peculiarities  of  surrounding  societies ;  the  mixture  of  races 
by  conquest  and  otherwise.     [261] 

53.  The  social  type  will  be  still  further  affected  by  the 
degrees  of  contrast  or  union  between  the  units  composing  the 
societies.     [262] 

54.  We  thus  class  societies  in  two  ways :  first,  in  the  order 
of  their  integration ;  second,  in  the  order  of  their  heterogeneity, 
general  and  local.  We  might  speak  about  a  possible  future 
type,  contrasted  with  the  industrial  type  by  inversion  of  the 
belief  that  life  is  for  zvork,  into  belief  that  work  is  for  life. 
[263] 

XI.    SOCIAL  METAMORPHOSES 

55.  In  social  organisms  as  in  individual  organisms,  struc- 
ture becomes  adapted  to  activity.  In  a  word,  the  outer  and 
inner  structures,  with  their  regulating  systems,  severally 
increase  or  diminish  according  as  the  activities  become  more 
militant  or  more  industrial.     [264] 

56.  We  must  observe,  not  only  how  metamorphoses  are 
caused,  but  also  how  they  are  hindered.  In  general,  where 
societies,  descending  one  from  another  in  a  series,  have  pur- 


128  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

sued  like  careers,  there  results  a  type  so  far  settled  in  its  cycle 
of  development,  maturity,  and  decay,  that  it  resists  meta- 
morphosis. There  will  also  be  cases  of  reversion,  when  earlier 
conditions  recur.      [265] 

57.  Transformations  of  the  militant  into  the  industrial 
and  of  the  industrial  into  the  militant  are  of  prime  interest. 
On  the  one  hand,  if  industry  flourishes,  unchecked  by  war,  the 
non-coercive  regulating  system  begins  to  show  itself.  Witness 
the  period  from  1825  —  the  beginning  of  the  long  peace  —  to 
1850.  in  contrast  with  the  period  from  1850  to  the  present 
time.  On  the  other  hand,  there  has  been  in  British  institu- 
tions generally  a  return  toward  the  militant  type  —  the  exten- 
sion of  centralized  administration  and  of  compulsory  regula- 
tion.    [266] 

58.  Of  course,  social  metamorphoses  are  in  every  case 
complicated  and  obscured  by  special  causes  never  twice  alike. 
For  instance,  habits,  beliefs,  and  sentiments  have  all  been 
altered  by  the  vast  transformation  suddenly  caused  by  rail- 
ways and  telegraphs.  In  general,  however,  so  far  as  meta- 
morphoses are  traceable,  they  illustrate  general  truths  harmo- 
nizing with  those  disclosed  by  comparisons  of  types.  With 
social  organisms  as  with  individual  organisms,  the  structure  ^ 
becomes  adapted  to  the  activity.    In  the  one  case  as  in  the  other, 

if  circumstances  entail  a  fundamental  change  in  the  mode  of 
activity,  there  by-and-by  results  a  fundamental  change  in  the 
form  of  structure.  In  both  cases  there  is  a  reversion  toward 
the  old  type,  if  there  is  a  resumption  of  the  old  activity.     [267] 

XIT.    QUALIFICATIONS   AND  SUMMARY 

59.  One  who  made  the  analogies  between  individual  organ- 
ization and  social  organization  his  special  subject  might  carry 
them  farther  in  several  directions.     [268] 

60.  We  repeat  that  there  exist  no  analogies  between  the 
body  politic  and  a  living  body,  save  those  necessitated  by  that 
mutual  dependence  of  parts  which  they  display  in  common. 
Though  we  have  made  sundry  comparisons  of  social  structures 


sj 


SPENCER'S  ANALYSIS  OF  SOCIETY  129 

and  functions  to  structures  and  functions  in  the  human  body, 
they  have  been  made  only  because  structures  and  functions 
in  the  human  body  furnish  famiHar  ilkistrations  of  structures 
and  functions  in  general.  Community  in  the  fundamental 
principles  of  organization  is  the  only  community  asserted. 
[269] 

61.  Comparisons  of  societies  in  their  ascending  grades 
have  thus  brought  to  light  certain  cardinal  facts.  The  induc- 
tions arrived  at,  constituting  in  rude  outline  an  Empirical 
Sociology,  show  that  there  is  a  general  order  of  coexistence  and 
sequence  in  social  phenomena ;  and  that  social  phenomena  con- 
sequently form  the  subject-matter  of  a  science  reducible,  in 
some  measure  at  least,  to  the  deductive  form. 

Guided,  then,  by  the  law  of  evolution  in  general,  and,  in 
subordination  to  it,  guided  by  the  foregoing  inductions,  we  are 
now  prepared  for  following  out  the  synthesis  of  social  phe- 
nomena. We  must  begin  with  those  simplest  ones  presented 
by  the  evolution  of  the  family.     [271] 

62.  The  chief  service  that  has  been  done  in  pointing  out  these 
analogies  so  minutely,  has  been  that  of  demonstrating,  by  means  of  them, 
that  society  is  an  evolving  aggregate.  This  was  the  truth  that  most 
needed  demonstration,  being  the  one  commonly  called  in  question.  The 
denial  of  this  proposition  is  fatal  to  all  attempts  to  study  sociology  as  a 
branch  of  science.  No  one  doubts  now  that  organisms  may  be  legitimately 
so  studied.  When,  therefore,  it  is  shown  that  nearly  all  the  phenomena 
which  a  living  creature  presents  are  directly  comparable  to  exactly  corre- 
sponding phenomena  in  society,  the  strongest  proof  that  can  be  presented 
of  the  scientific  character  of  social  processes,  has  been  furnished. 

And  when  it  is  shown  that  society  has  passed  through  all  the  stages  of 
evolution  that  living  creatures  have,  and  has  been  subject  to  all  the  laws, 
principles,  and  processes  of  evolution  in  general,  the  case  seems  to  be  pretty 
thoroughly  made  out.  From  a  confused,  chaotic,  homogeneous  state,  still 
represented  by  many  low  tribes,  there  have  gone  on  both  differentiation 
and  integration.  From  the  several  degrees  of  social  differentiation  shown 
by  different  races,  a  classification  of  societies  is  made  possible." 

'  Ward,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  209. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD 

With  this  scheme  before  us,  our  problem  is  to  pass  judg- 
ment upon  it  with  reference  to  its  impHcit  purpose.  What 
end  is  the  scheme  devised  to  serve  ?  It  may  have  a  value,  like 
a  piece  of  mathematical  reasoning,  as  a  logical  arrangement 
of  ideas  to  which  nothing  in  the  external  world  corresponds. 
If  this  only  were  the  case,  it  would  have  no  value  for  sociology. 
We  must  keep  in  mind  the  goal  of  sociology.  It  aims  at  the 
most  knowledge  attainable  of  the  essential  procedure  when 
human  beings  associate.  Spencer's  scheme  is  an  attempt  to 
give  name,  and  place,  and  importance  to  the  meaning  factors 
in  human  association.  It  is  not  a  system  of  speculative  con- 
ceptions. It  is  an  attempt  to  represent  in  language  the  literal 
facts  of  society,  in  the  relations  in  which  they  actually  occur  in 
real  life.  It  is  a  device  by  means  of  which,  in  proportion  as 
it  is  adapted  to  its  purpose,  we  should  be  able  more  truly,  more 
comprehensively,  and  more  profoundly  to  understand,  for 
instance,  the  life  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  than  we 
could  without  the  aid  of  such  description.  The  fair  test 
is  not  to  ask  whether  this  scheme  leaves  nothing  in  the  way 
of  social  exposition  to  be  desired,  but  whether  it  lays  bare 
more  of  the  essential  truth  about  society  than  is  visible  with- 
out such  interpretation ;  not  whether  there  is  a  remainder  to  be 
explained,  but  whether  more  appears  in  the  confusion  of  every- 
day life  than  is  discovered  before  it  is  seen  in  terms  of  these 
symbols. 

Judged  by  this  test,  the  Spencerian  scheme  is  certainly  an 
approach  to  truth.  It  may  be  as  far  from  the  whole  truth  as 
a  skeleton  sketched  upon  canvas  as  the  basis  of  a  portrait. 
There  remains  much  to  be  done  before  the  portrait  is  true  in 
form,  feature,  and  expression.     It  would  be  uncanny  to  insist 

130 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  131 

that  the  skelet(3n  should  be  accepted  as  the  portrait.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  portrait  could  never  be  true  if  it  implied 
absence  or  essential  abnormality  of  the  skeleton. 

The  analogy  is  worth  carrying  out  in  another  direction. 
To  be  recognized  as  successful,  a  portrait  need  by  no  means 
suggest  to  everyone  a  skeleton.  It  is  conceivable  that  the 
most  successful  portraiture  of  societies  that  will  ever  be 
achieved,  may  subordinate  the  structural  element  so  com- 
pletely to  something  more  significant,  that  nothing  analogous 
to  a  skeleton  will  be  suggested  to  most  minds.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  scientific  expression  of  social 
reality  will  ever  be  possible  without  employment  of  structural 
symbols.  Circumstances  will  decide  to  what  extent  structural 
phases  of  the  social  reality  need  be  in  evidence  on  particular 
occasions.  In  judging  that  Spencer's  analysis  of  society  is 
true  as  far  as  it  goes,  we  are  by  no  means  concluding  that  our 
thoughts  about  society  must  always  express  themselves  in 
terms  of  his  scheme.  It  would  be  a  consummation  much  more 
devoutly  to  be  wished  if  our  thoughts  could  so  thoroughly 
assimilate  his  scheme  that  we  should  never  think  of  society  in 
ways  that  do  violence  to  anything  essential  in  it,  with  free- 
dom, as  occasion  might  demand,  to  mobilize  more  or  less  of 
his  pictorial  analysis  for  special  duty. 

Ever  since  Spencer  wrote,  there  has  been  lively  debate  of 
the  question  whether  his  scheme  should  be  accepted  or  rejected. 
The  upshot  will  be  neither.  It  will  be  assimilated  and  co-ordi- 
nated. In  many  arguments  the  issue  has  been  Spencer  versus 
somebody  else.  It  has  been  assumed  that  it  was  a  question 
of  exclusion.  The  only  social  theorist  who  need  be  excluded 
by  conceding  some  value  to  Spencer's  scheme  would  have  to 
be  one  who  denies  the  fundamentals  of  association.  The 
essential  idea  in  the  concept  "  structure  "  is  parts  of  a  ivhole 
at  rest  in  relation  to  each  other.  That  idea  is  realized  to  a 
certain  extent  in  human  associations.  It  would  be  vicious  to 
use  this  idea  as  a  dogma  to  enforce  belief  that  structure  exists 
in  human  association  where  it  does  not.     It  is  wise,  however, 


^ 


132  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

to  use  the  idea  as  a  clue  to  all  the  structure  actually  present 
in  the  associations  with  which  we  are  concerned.  Structure 
is  not  all  in  society^  but  we  need  to  know  all  the  structure 
there  is. 

Accordingly,  if  we  want  to  know  all  that  may  be  known 
about  any  human  society,  there  will  be  a  measure  of  use  for 
some  adaptation  of  the  structural  method  of  description  as 
represented  by  Spencer.  Let  us  take  for  illustration  that 
human  association  known  as  the  United  States  of  America, 
which  for  brevity  we  will  call  America.  Let  us  follow  the 
order  of  Spencer's  scheme.  Is  it  true  that  America  is  an 
entity?  We  might  revive  the  fashion  of  an  obsolete  style  of 
sermonizing,  and  waste  words  on  demonstration  of  the  com- 
monplace. America  is  not  Canada,  nor  Mexico,  nor  Brazil, 
nor  Europe,  nor  Asia,  nor  Africa.  America,  in  our  present 
sense,  is  a  body  of  people  known  the  world  over  as  themselves, 
not  somebody  else.  America  is  a  body  of  people  occupying  a 
strictly  defined  portion  of  the  earth's  surface;  having  well- 
understood  relations  to  each  other  and  to  people  of  all  other 
nations;  characterized  by  distinguishing  traits,  conditions, 
interests,  pursuits;  occupying  a  unique  position  in  the  scale 
of  civilization;  and  employing  means  in  some  degree  peculiar 
to  themselves  for  accomplishing  purposes  upon  which  they  are 
intent.  Without  multiplying  details,  we  have  thus  already 
called  to  mind  enough  to  justify  us  in  saying  that,  in  a  real 
sense,  without  forcing  ideas,  America  is  a  one,  an  object  of 
thought  not  identical  with  other  objects  of  thought.  America 
is  not  Great  Britain,  not  France,  not  Germany,  nor  a  part  of 
them  combined.  America  is  distinct  from  them,  an  entity^  to  be  / 
thought  about,  talked  about,  to  act  and  to  be  acted  upon,  with- 
out necessarily  bringing  either  of  these  other  entities  into 
view.     So  far  there  is  surely  no  issue  with  Spencer.     [212]^ 

But  what  kind  of  an  entity  is  America?    There  are  entities, 
things,  that  are  lifeless,  motionless,  helpless.    They  can  start 

'  The  numbers  in  brackets  in  this  chapter  refer  to  sections  in  the  part  of 
Principles  of  Sociology    digested  in  the  previous  chapter. 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  133 

no  action,  unless  they  are  acted  upon  by  other  things.  Is 
America  one  of  these?  At  this  point  doubt  enters.  What  do 
words  mean  ?  In  what  sense  shall  we  understand  a  "  yes  "  or 
a  "  no  "  ?  There  are  other  entities  that  are  alive.  They  rear- 
range the  parts  of  which  they  are  composed.  They  build 
themselves  up  by  drawing  into  themselves  new  material,  and 
by  disposing  of  it  in  such  a  way  that  their  mass  increases  and 
its  organization  becomes  complex.  Some  things  do  all  this  and 
more.  They  move  from  place  to  place,  and  select  among  other 
things  materials  which  they  convert  into  parts  of  themselves. 
Besides  clods,  there  are  plants  and  animals  among  entities.  Is 
America  one  of  these,  or  a  quite  different  order  of  entity? 

[213] 

Perhaps  Spencer  would  have  been  better  understood  if  he 

had  not  spoken  quite  so  freely  in  answering  these  questions. 
He  used  words  which  people  have  ever  since  seemed  deter- 
mined to  misunderstand.  Let  us  do  without  them,  if  we  can, 
even  at  the  cost  of  a  vagueness  that  he  tried  to  avoid.  America 
is  an  entity,  but  neither  such  an  entity  as  a  block  or  a  stone, 
nor  such  an  entity  as  a  plant  or  an  animal.  America  is  neither 
a  lifeless  thing  nor  a  living  thing.  But  America  is  many  men  \ 
and  women  who  have  so  much  to  do  with  each  other  that  in 
many  respects  we  cannot  tell  the  whole  truth  about  them  unless 
we  tell  about  the  whole  of  them.  These  many  people  are, 
therefore,  from  one  point  of  view  many,  and  from  other  points 
of  view  one.  They  are  themselves;  but  to  be  entirely  them- 
selves they  have  need  of  each  other.  In  this  falling  back  on 
each  other  in  various  ways,  they  stop  being  many,  and  become 
instead  the  one  America.     [213] 

While  we  may  put  the  fact  in  such  colorless  form  that  it 
seems  too  obvious  for  special  mention,  as  in  the  last  paragraph, 
this  actual  oneness  of  America  will  bear  a  good  deal  of  more 
exact  description.  In  what  particular  ways  do  the  people  who 
compose  America  act  together  as  a  whole,  instead  of  being 
entirely  independent  of  each  other?  In  the  first  place,  this 
America  has  never  consisted  of  the  same  number  of  people  in 


134  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

two  consecutive  years.  Some  have  died,  more  have  been 
born,  and  strangers  have  come  from  other  countries  and  joined 
the  community.  America  has  grown.  This  does  not  mean 
merely  that  the  number  of  acres  occupied  has  increased,  but 
the  number  of  persons  occupying  the  acres,  and  constituting 
America,  has  increased.  America  has  never  been,  and  can 
never  be,  a  stationary  number  of  persons.  America  is  not  any 
persons  whatsoever  in  the  wide  world.  America  is  a  special 
collection  of  persons;  yet  this  collection  does  not  remain  con- 
stant. It  extends  itself.  It  grows  by  multiplication  from  its 
own  numbers,  and  by  assimilation  of  persons  from  other 
societies.  In  growing,  it  does  not  lose  its  identity.  It  changes, 
yet  it  remains  the  same  one.  If  there  are  other  species  of 
entities  in  the  world  of  which  similar  things  are  true,  they 
are  true  in  a  somewhat  different  sense,  so  that  America  must 
be  classed  in  a  species  of  entities  which  are  unlike  either  the 
lifeless  or  the  living  things,  about  which  analogous,  but  not 
precisely  the  same,  statements  may  be  made.     [214] 

As  America  has  grown,  another  change  has  also  occurred. 
The  people  have  gradually  adjusted  themselves  to  each  other 
in  somewhat  permanent  ways,  and  again  their  adjustments 
to  each  other  have  undergone  progressive  modification.  In 
the  early  history  of  the  country  all  the  people  pursued  very 
nearly  the  same  occupations.  Nearly  everybody  was  a  farmer. 
Even  the  minister  and  the  teacher  and  the  doctor  were  likely 
to  be  partly  farmers.  Each  family  was  so  much  like  every 
other  family  that  there  was  little  occasion  to  ask  for  special 
kinds  of  service  from  persons  with  rare  gifts.  The  people 
came  together  in  their  towns  for  public  worship.  They  banded 
together  for  defense  against  the  Indians ;  they  joined  forces 
to  enact  certain  colonial  laws.  At  last  the  thirteen  colonies 
took  joint  action  against  Great  Britain.  All  this  time,  and 
ever  since,  America  has  been  an  entity  growing  in  numbers 
of  persons  included,  but  developing  also  in  the  forms  of 
activity  carried  on  by  the  persons.  In  town,  and  state,  and 
nation   families  have  become  unlike,  as  the  head  and  other 


yU 


\J 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  135 

members  of  the  families  have  speciaHzed  in  numberless  forms 
of  occupation.  In  consequence,  America  has  ceased  to  be  a 
mere  aggregate  of  persons  who  were  almost  duplicates  of  each 
other,  and  who  acted  together  only  in  masses,  if  at  all. 
America  has  changed  into  a  vastly  larger  number  of  people 
who  differ  from  each  other  in  countless  ways.  These  very 
differences,  however,  make  them  more  useful  to  each  other. 
and  bind  them  more  firmly  together.  Thus  America  has  both 
become  many  more,  and  at  the  same  time  has  become  more 
one.  This  change  is  going  on  before  our  eyes.  The  hallo 
girl  and  the  motor  man  have  existed  only  since  yesterday,  but 
America  would  be  embarrassed  if  they  should  suddenly  refuse 
to  perform  their  parts.  This  change  which  makes  particular 
people  into  specialists,  and  at  the  same  time  makes  America 
more  evidently  one  entity,  is  likely  to  go  on  beyond  any 
discoverable  limit.      [215] 

We  can  hardly  speak  of  these  changes  without  implying 
two  things  that  may  be  separated  in  thought,  but  are  close 
together  in  reality.  The  first  was  referred  to  primarily  in  the 
last  paragraph;  viz.,  the  growing  dissimilarity  of  the  indi- 
viduals in  America.  At  first  each  daughter  was  a  farmer's 
daughter.  Her  place  in  America  corresponded  to  the  place  of 
every  other  daughter.  Today  in  America  one  daughter  is  a 
farmer's  daughter,  another  a  factory  hand,  another  a  domestic, 
another  a  salesgirl,  another  a  teacher,  another  a  typist,  another 
a  private  secretary,  another  a  "debutante,"  and  so  on  and  so 
on.  Each  has  a  place,  in  the  forms  and  customs  of  America, 
a  little  separated  from  the  place  of  the  others.  But  all  this  is 
merely  a  phase  of  another  fact,  implied  indeed  in  any  con- 
venient way  of  expressing  the  former  fact ;  viz. :  the  persons 
are  not  only  different  from  each  other  as  individuals,  or  in  the 
place  which  they  occupy  in  social  customs ;  they  are  different 
in  the  work  that  they  do.  This  latter  difference  is  much 
greater  in  some  respects  than  the  others,  and  is  partly  cause 
and  partly  effect  of  the  other  differences.  Some  men  bake 
bread,  while  a  large  number  of  households  lose  the  habit  of 


136  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

baking  bread,  and  depend  on  the  bakers.  These  families,  in 
turn,  are  able  to  pay  the  baker  for  his  bread  because  they  per- 
form each  some  useful  work.  One  bread-winner  is  a  station- 
ary engineer,  another  is  a  truck-driver,  another  a  printer, 
another  a  foundryman.  Each  of  these  does  work  that  the 
baker  or  somebody  else  wants.  Each  can  therefore  get  some- 
thing to  give  the  baker  in  exchange  for  his  bread.  America 
has  thus  come  to  be  a  growing  number  of  people,  in  somewhat 
obvious  assortments,  and  carrying  on  varieties  of  activities 
which  result  in  a  dependence  of  everybody  on  everybody  else 
for  many  of  the  conveniences,  luxuries,  and  necessities.  This 
state  of  things  in  America  and  other  societies  might  be  illus- 
trated, if  we  were  so  disposed,  by  somewhat  parallel  states  of 
things  in  the  case  of  such  entities  as  plants  and  animals.  We 
need  not  now  stop  to  experiment  with  such  comparisons,  but 
may  content  ourselves  with  literal  recital  of  the  social  facts. 
[216] 

It  is  not  enough  to  say,  as  in  the  last  paragraph,  that  the 
people  in  America  have  acquired  the  habit  of  depending  upon 
each  other  for  work,  instead  of  performing  it  for  themselves. 
We  must  go  farther  than  this.  America  would  cease  to  be  itself, 
there  would  be  interference  with  the  life,  liberty,  and  happiness 
of  each  American,  if  any  of  the  specialized  persons  who  per- 
form their  particular  work,  should  suddenly  stop  doing  their 
part.  This  specialization  of  persons  is,  in  other  words,  a 
necessity  in  America.  Life  would  be  thrown  out  of  harmony. 
There  would  be  universal  discomfort  and  perplexity;  and 
presently  confusion  and  desperation  and  violence  would  follow, 
until  other  persons  could  be  found  to  resume  the  work.  Sup- 
pose, for  instance,  that  either  the  mining  of  coal  or  the  use  of 
telegraphs  and  telephones  were  to  cease  entirely  in  America 
for  an  indefinite  period.  The  result  would  be  not  only  loss  of 
livelihood  for  thousands  of  miners,  or  employees  of  telegraph 
and  telephone  companies.  The  more  serious  results  would 
be  distributed  throughout  all  the  homes  in  America.  Before 
the  people  could  readjust  themselves  to  the  situation,  and  pro- 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  137 

vide  suitable  substitutes  for  the  suspended  services,  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  country  might  be  brought  to  the 
verge  of  misery.  This  division  of  the  people  into  many  differ- 
ent kinds,  doing  highly  varied  sorts  of  work,  is  not  merely  a 
curious  fact,  of  no  special  importance.  On  the  contrary, 
the  more  special  the  contrasts  between  people,  and  the  more 
highly  differentiated  their  occupations,  the  truer  is  it  in  gen- 
eral that  each  of  them  is  more  important  to  the  well-being  of 
America  than  individuals  or  their  occupations  could  possibly 
be  when  they  were  more  alike.     [217] 

What  shall  we  say,  then,  about  the  plain  facts,  and  the 
apparent  contradiction  in  the  facts  ?  When  we  say  that 
America  is  a  many,  and  at  the  same  time  that  America  is  a 
one,  are  we  not  talking  foolishness?  Can  an  entity  be  at  the 
same  time  a  one  and  a  many?  Not  in  the  same  sense,  to  be 
sure.  Different  things  may  be  true  about  the  same  entity,  and 
things  that  seem  to  exclude  each  other ;  yet  it  may  prove  that 
the  apparently  conflicting  truths  are  merely  parts  of  a  truth 
greater  than  either.  This  is  the  key  to  the  paradox  of  the  one 
and  the  many  in  the  case  of  America.  In  1898  there  were 
many  millions  of  people  in  America,  each  with  a  lively  interest 
in  the  Cubans.  Some  of  them  had  one  opinion,  and  some 
another.  With  exceptions  too  few  for  notice,  none  of  them 
could  give  their  opinions  any  effect.  Presently  America  as  a 
whole  conceived  a  purpose  and  marked  out  a  course  of  action. 
From  that  time  every  individual  in  America  was  a  factor  in 
shaping  the  future  of  Cuba.  Whether  he  approved  or  disap- 
proved, each  American  was  so  united  with  all  Americans  that 
no  one  could  totally  withdraw  himself  from  the  national  force 
which  exerted  a  deciding  influence  upon  Cuba's  fortunes. 
America  is  one  in  deciding  on  what  terms  anybody,  citizen  or 
alien,  may  bring  foreign-made  goods  into  the  country ;  or  on 
what  terms  a  Chinese  may  visit  or  reside  among  us.  America 
is  one  in  maintaining  a  constitution  to  which  private  persons, 
officials,  and  public  bodies  must  conform.  Americans  are 
many  in  deciding  whether  to  vote  or  not;    they  are  one  in 


138  GENERAL    SOCIOLOGY 

maintaining  that  their  poHtical  action  shall  be  regulated  by 
voting.  Americans  are  many  in  their  views  about  religion; 
Americans  are  one  in  will  to  defeat  any  compulsion  of  their 
religion.  Americans  are  many  in  their  opinions  about  the 
rights  of  laborers;  they  are  one  in  dependence  upon  the  gen- 
eral prosperity  of  laborers. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  discussion  as  to  whether  this 
fact  of  the  simultaneous  oneness  and  manyness  of  a  society  like 
America  has  any  analogues  among  entities  which  are  not  of 
the  social  type.  This  is  an  interesting  question,  yet  it  is  not 
one  of  first-rate  importance.  Whether  there  are  relations 
elsewhere  comparable  with  the  relations  between  the  indi- 
viduals and  the  whole  in  a  society,  is  certainly  not  the  main 
question,  when  our  object  is  to  learn  the  most  about  societies 
themselves.  We  may  therefore  dismiss  the  question  of  pos- 
sible analogies,  and  insist  on  the  literal  reality.  Every  indi- 
vidual in  America  is  in  so  many  ways  one  with  the  whole  of 
America  that  what  he  has  been,  and  is,  and  may  be  depends 
upon  what  the  whole  of  America  does  and  is.  On  the  other 
hand,  what  America  has  been,  and  is,  and  may  be  depends  , 
upon  the  sort  of  association  that  has  been,  and  is,  and  may  be, 
between  the  millions  of  individuals  that  make  up  the  whole. 
Our  intelligence  about  human  society  may  be  measured  by  the 
extent  to  which  we  understand  in  detail  that  individuals  and 
societies  live  and  move  and  have  their  being  in  many-sided 
action  and  reaction  with  each  other.     [218] 

While  America  is  what  it  is  because  all  the  individual 
Americans  exist,  and  each  individual  American  is  what  he  is 
because  America  exists,  there  are  phases  of  the  existence  of 
each  not  wholly  dependent  on  the  other.  Suppose  it  were  pos- 
sible for  Americans  to  agree  among  themselves  to  separate 
into  as  many  different,  independent,  political  societies  as  there 
are  states  in  the  Union.  America  would  no  longer  exist.  Each 
individual  in  the  population  would  continue  to  exist  as  though 
nothing  had  happened.  The  purely  animal  existence  of  . 
Americans  would  not  necessarily  be  affected   in  any  appre- 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  139 

ciable  degree.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  not  be  long  before 
changes  in  the  mental  and  moral  make-up  of  Americans  would 
begin  to  be  very  evident.  Peculiar  sectional  conditions  would 
dictate  interests  that  would  presently  show  their  effects  in 
aggravating  individual  differences.  Jealousy,  provincialism, 
clannishness,  timidity,  diminished  initiative,  would  undoubt- 
edly take  the  place  of  the  opposite  traits  now  generally 
credited  to  Americans.  The  breaking  up  of  America  would 
not  extinguish  Americans,  but  it  would  change  the  personal 
equation  of  each  individual  American. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  all  Americans  were  to  die  at  once, 
the  land  America  would  be  left,  but  the  society  America 
would  have  ceased  to  exist.  Since  the  individuals  in  a  society 
do  not  all  die  at  once,  something  is  true  of  societies  which  is 
of  profound  importance.  Though  the  individuals  drop  out 
one  by  one,  till  after  a  certain  time  not  one  of  the  original 
members  remains,  nevertheless  the  society  retains  a  persistent 
tone  and  character.  In  some  of  its  features  there  is  no  change 
of  conditions  for  generations  or  centuries.  Thus  in  America 
not  a  single  person  is  left  who  was  alive  at  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  or  even  at  the  inauguration  of  the  first  presi- 
dent. On  the  average,  the  whole  original  stock  has  given 
place  to  a  younger  generation  more  than  three  times.  The 
waves  of  newcomers  have  further  changed  the  personnel  of 
America.  Yet  in  political  structure,  in  social  standards,  in 
religious  traditions,  in  the  force  of  public  opinion,  in  the 
prevalence  of  certain  darling  doctrines,  it  is  not  altogether  easy 
to  prove  that  there  has  been  any  change  at  all.  In  a  society 
there  is  tenacious  survival  of  influence,  describe  it  how  we 
will,  superior  to,  and  independent  of,  the  aggregate  influence 
of  the  living  individuals.  While  the  society  cannot  last  unless 
individuals  last,  the  society  is  more  lasting  than  the  individuals.' 
Here  again  is  something  to  be  looked  into  more  closely.  It  is 
true  that  America  makes  Americans,  and  that  Americans 
make  America.  It  is  also  true  that  America  and  Americans 
each  have  power  to  be  in  some  sort  independent  of  each  other. 


.140  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

The  details  and  applications  of  this  generality  are  often  crucial 
in  explaining  actual  social  problems.     [219] 

All  that  has  been  said  so  far  about  America,  as  a  sample 
society,  might  seem  to  imply  further  details  which  everyone 
knows  to  be  absent  from  the  real  America.  In  saying  that 
America  is  an  entity,  and  in  reciting  some  of  the  things  that 
are  true  about  that  entity,  we  may  seem  to  have  involved  our- 
selves in  notions  that  are  not  true  about  America.  For 
instance,  we  might  seem  to  have  implied  that  America  is  a 
solid  mass,  like  a  mountain  or  a  lake.  We  may  seem  to  have 
indicated  a  belief  that  Americans  are  like  the  particles  of  mat- 
ter that  are  worked  up  into  the  structure  of  a  warehouse  or  a 
locomotive.  Of  course,  nothing  of  this  sort  is  true.  America 
is  an  entity  that  is  made  up  of  people.  We  all  know  that 
people  influence  each  other  mightily  without  being  in  physical 
contact,  or  without  direct  use  of  any  common  physical  medium. 
There  are  Americans  living  in  Massachusetts  who  have  never 
seen  a  single  American  who  lives  in  Utah.  Some  of  these 
Massachusetts  Americans  are  more  disturbed  by  some  of  these 
Utah  Americans  than  they  are  by  the  most  dangerous  people  in 
their  own  town.  The  particular  vocation  chosen  by  some  of 
these  Massachusetts  Americans  has  been  due  to  certain  i>ecu- 
liarities  in  these  Utah  Americans.  The  fact  that  southern 
planters  and  northern  farmers  were  hundreds  of  miles  apart, 
and  in  most  cases  never  came  within  touching  distance  of  each 
other,  made  it  possible  for  forces  to  gather  strength  enough 
presently  to  hurl  these  fellow-citizens  together  with  the  fiercest 
physical  violence.  The  Texas  ranchman  or  the  Kansas  corn- 
grower  may  never  see  a  New  York  banker;  yet  Wall  Street 
is  a  presence  as  real,  on  ranch  and  prairie,  as  flood  or  cyclone  * 
that  destroys  herds  and  crops  and  men.  We  have  no  adjective 
adequately  to  characterize  the  sort  of  entity  that  society  is. 
We  shall  do  better,  then,  not  to  attempt  to  sum  up  these 
peculiar  traits  of  society  by  use  of  terms  that  are  easily  mis- 
construed. We  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  different 
truths  to  Ije  brought  to  light  about  society  all  comport  with 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  141 

this  wonderful  fact  of  reciprocal  influence  throughout  a 
society,  of  many  and  potent  sorts,  although  the  persons  who 
compose  the  society  may  be  at  distances  from  each  other 
varying  from  residence  in  the  same  house  to  location  at  oppo- 
site sides  of  a  continent.  America  does  not  cease  to  be  one  in 
essential  respects,  although  its  people  are  widely  dispersed  in 
space.  America  does  not  cease  to  be  millions  of  individuals, 
in  certain  other  essential  respects,  although  these  individuals 
are  subject  to  certain  common  conditions  which  make  for  them, 
in  important  relations,  one  and  the  same  destiny.     [220] 

We  may  express  still  more  distinctly  the  facts  referred  to 
in  the  last  paragraph.  We  may  say  negatively  that  the  rela- 
tion between  the  persons  that  make  up  a  society  is  not  prin- 
cipally mechanical.  One  person  acts  upon  other  persons,  not 
chiefly  by  use  of  physical  force,  but  by  communication  of 
thought  and  feeling  and  purposes  in  one  way  and  another. 
Through  the  different  agencies  that  people  have  at  their  com- 
mand, the  persons  in  a  society  make  themselves  felt  by  each 
other.  They  are  responsive  to  each  other's  moods.  They 
accommodate  themselves  to  each  other's  wishes.  They 
observe  nicely  calculated  bounds  of  conduct.  They  balance, 
and  restrain,  and  instigate,  and  inspire  each  other,  so  that  cer- 
tain common  characteristics  come  to  be  a  sort  of  ground  plan 
of  each  individual's  personality;  certain  common  impulses 
move  all  in  like  ways  and  often  at  the  same  time;  a  certain 
consensus  of  idea  organizes  their  actions  into  co-operation  and 
concert ;  and  thus  all  America  may  be  said  to  share  one  career, 
while  at  the  same  time  each  individual  has  a  more  special 
career  of  his  own.     [221] 

We  come  now  to  an  important  check  upon  a  possible  tend- 
ency to  go  out  in  search  of  fanciful  expressions  of  this  won- 
derfully complicated  entity,  society.  We  have  seen  plainly 
enough  that  America  is  not  a  lifeless,  mechanical  entity.  Shall 
we  go  to  the  other  extreme,  and  try  to  persuade  ourselves  that 
America  is  a  living  entity  —  an  animal,  or  more  definitely  a 
magnified  man  ?    Many  people  have  been  so  impressed  by  the 


142  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

marvelous  workings  of  society  that  they  have  used  language 
which  seemed  to  carry  this  meaning.  If  that  was  really  their 
idea,  they  were  certainly  mistaken.  If  America  were  a  big 
animal,  a  superhuman  man,  many  things  would  be  true  of 
America  which  are  obviously  not  true.  So  long  as  the  indi- 
viduals in  a  society  are  morally  sound  and  mentally  sane, 
there  is  no  single  vital  part  in  the  society,  like  a  man's  heart, 
destruction  of  which  would  destroy  the  society.  There  is  no 
brain  that  is  the  center  of  sensation  and  of  motor  impulses  in 
society.  All  the  sensations  are  in  the  individuals.  All  the 
impulses  to  action  have  their  seat  in  individuals.  All  the 
vitality  there  is  lodges  in  the  individuals.  These  individuals 
do  not  grow  together  into  a  great  animal.  They  adjust  them- 
selves to  each  other  in  a  society.  This  adjustment  multiplies 
the  wants,  and  the  opportunities,  and  the  efficiencies  of  the 
individuals,  so  that  one  can  hardly  be  surprised  if  some  men 
look  upon  the  social  bond  as  a  translation  of  individuals  into  a 
superior  order  of  animal  existence.  Such  a  conception,  how- 
ever, is  merely  the  conceit  of  unlicensed  imagination.  With 
all  its  intricacies,  society  is  not  itself  a  living  person.  Society 
is  many  living  persons,  acting  with  and  upon  each  other  in 
such  a  way  that  each  person  is  a  magnified  and  diversified 
person,  compared  with  the  person  that  it  would  be  possible  for 
each  to  be  if  doomed  to  a  career  isolated  from  the  rest  of 
society.  We  must  very  often  speak  of  the  welfare  of  society, 
and  we  even  have  to  speak  of  the  welfare  of  society  in  specific 
contrast  with  the  welfare  of  individuals.  These  forms  of 
language  would  seem  to  mean  that  society  has  an  existence 
distinct  from  the  existence  of  the  individuals  within  the  society; 
or,  in  the  concrete,  the  society  America  exists  in  addition  to, 
and  apart  from,  the  Americans.  This  is,  of  course,  nonsense. 
The  truth  is  that,  when  we  put  the  welfare  of  society  in  antith- 
esis with  the  welfare  of  individuals,  we  are  either  trying  to 
express  what  is  not  clear  in  our  own  minds,  or  we  are  using 
a  highly  condensed  form  of  expression,  which  does  not  do 
complete  justice  to  our  thought.     The  fact  is  this:     There  can 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  143 

be  no  welfare  of  society  which  is  not  welfare  experienced  by 
individuals.  But  as  society  is  made  up  of  many  individuals, 
some  of  the  number  may  act  in  such  a  way  that  they  interfere 
with  satisfactory  and  profitable  association  by  the  rest.  Thus 
if  a  few  Americans  are  criminal,  we  may  say  that  the  welfare 
of  America  is  incompatible  with  criminality,  and  irreconcilable 
with  the  welfare  of  those  criminals,  so  far  as  their  welfare  is 
held  by  them  to  be  inseparable  from  crime.  We  cannot,  how- 
ever, believe  that  anything  is  real  welfare  for  a  few  which 
endangers  the  welfare  of  the  many.  We  always,  therefore, 
identify  society  with  a  certain  eminent  majority  of  the  indi- 
viduals, and  we  repudiate  the  thought  of  interests  in  the  small 
remaining  minority  respectable  enough  to  override  the  obvious 
interests  of  the  larger  many.     [222] 

Thus  we  have  roughly  indicated  the  sort  of  entity  which 
inspection  proves  a  given  society  to  be.  We  have  no  precise 
words  for  this  entity,  because  there  is  no  other  entity  of  exactly 
the  same  order.  Men  have  invented  words  to  fit  other  entities, 
but  we  are  just  now  starting  upon  the  work  of  analyzing 
societies  scientifically,  so  as  to  distinguish  them  with  the  utmost 
accuracy  from  other  entities.  To  avoid  vagueness  and  apparent 
misstatement,  we  must  confine  ourselves  to  forms  of  expression 
that  do  not  seem  to  confound  societies  with  other  entities  from 
which  they  differ.  We  are  therefore  obliged  to  describe  what 
takes  place  in  societies,  without  arriving  at  ability  to  announce 
what  societies  are.  Thus  we  have  seen  that  societies  grow, 
Am.erica  being  our  example.  As  growth  goes  on,  the  number 
of  individuals  becoming  greater,  certain  of  the  individuals 
come  to  be  set  off  from  other  individuals  by  virtue  of  differ- 
ences in  the  parts  that  the  several  sorts  of  individuals  perform 
within  the  society.  These  distinctions  between  individuals 
come  to  be  somewhat  permanent.  They  are  accompanied  also 
by  various  indexes  which  register  the  divisions.  At  the  same 
time,  these  differences  between  the  persons  do  not  destroy  the 
society;  on  the  contrary,  they  make  association  more  intensive. 
They  accrue  to  the  benefit  of  all  the  individuals,  and  the  indi- 


144  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

viduals  accordingly  come  to  be  dependent  upon  the  modes  of 
life  that  are  induced  by  the  differentiation.  This  division  of 
individuals  goes  so  far  that  such  a  society  as  America  comes 
to  be  something  like  a  nest  of  boxes.  It  is  made  up  of  societies 
within  societies  —  the  state  within  the  nation,  the  county 
within  the  state,  the  town  within  the  county,  the  ward  within 
the  town,  the  precinct  within  the  ward;  and  each  of  these 
divisions  reproduces,  on  a  smaller  scale  and  with  vanishing 
definiteness,  the  structure  of  the  larger  whole.  Our  last 
illustration,  from  political  structure,  should  not  be  taken  as 
implying  that  social  structure  is  merely  political.  America, 
like  all  societies,  is  structurally  arranged  geographically, 
industrially,  educationally,  religiously,  as  well  as  in  its  politics 
and  its  social  intercourse.  This  fundamental  fact  —  that  real 
persons,  in  any  society,  lead  lives  in  which  their  structural 
relations  are  always  an  efficient  factor  —  is  a  first  primary 
lesson  in  knowledge  of  society,     [223] 

Following  Spencer's  lead,  we  may  profitably  look  into  the 
fact  of  social  structure  somewhat  more  in  detail,  and  observe 
some  of  the  more  obvious  things  which  it  involves. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  the  item  of  growth,  already  con- 
sidered. Human  societies  are  entities  that  undergo  change  in 
the  number  of  their  members,  without  losing  their  identity. 
There  are  societies  whose  origins  we  may  trace,  and  whose 
beginnings  we  may  accurately  date.  Thus  we  know  that  the 
Society  of  Jesus  was  at  first  merely  an  idea  in  the  mind  of 
Loyola.  Then  we  know  that  he  associated  a  few  kindred 
spirits  with  himself,  and  we  may  read  how  the  society  grew 
till  it  was  aptly  described  as  "  a  sword  whose  hilt  is  at  Rome, 
and  whose  blade  is  everywhere."  Other  societies  are  so  ancient 
and  complicated  in  their  lineage  that  no  two  scholars  might  be 
able  to  agree  as  to  the  place  of  their  beginning.  This  is  the  case 
with  almost  every  society  of  the  national  order.  When  did 
France  begin?  With  Louis  XI,  and  his  triumph  of  monarchy 
over  the  feudal  princes?  With  the  Karolingians,  and,  if  so, 
with  which  of  them?    Shall  we  find  the  beginnings  of  France 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  145 

with  Charlemagne  at  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century,  or 
with  his  ecclesiastical  ancestor  in  the  middle  of  the  seventh? 
Or  must  we  go  back  farther  still,  and  find  the  beginnings  of 
France  in  the  triply  divided  Gaul  that  Julius  Caesar  invaded 
before  the  Christian  era?  We  can  no  more  trace  the  absolute 
beginnings  of  nations  than  we  can  follow  back  the  genealogy 
of  an  individual  to  the  first  parents.  The  comparatively  late 
history  of  many  nations  is  known  to  us,  and  we  find  that  their 
growth  varies  indefinitely.  Some  never  attain  imposing  size, 
as  in  the  case  of  Tyre,  Carthage,  Venice,  Holland,  Portugal, 
Liberia,  Korea.  Others  attain  enormous  dimensions  —  China, 
Russia,  Great  Britain. 

This  growth  of  societies  —  whether  of  the  smaller  type, 
like  a  conventicle  or  a  trade  guild,  or  the  larger  type,  like 
a  nation  —  takes  place  by  two  processes  which  go  on  some- 
times together  and  sometimes  separately.  The  one  process 
is  the  addition  of  individuals  to  the  society,  as  by  birth  in 
the  case  of  the  nation,  by  proselyting  in  the  case  of  a  sect, 
or  by  absorption  of  whole  groups  of  persons  at  a  time.  Thus 
religious  societies  may  combine  to  form  one ;  a  larger  number 
of  feudatories  may  unite  in  one  kingdom ;  the  score  of  states  in 
North  Germany  may  coalesce  in  the  German  Empire;  etc., 
etc.  In  each  of  these  cases  there  may  be  little  or  no  visible 
change  in  the  individuals.  It  may  be  only  after  close  analysis 
that  we  can  make  out  that  the  individuals  lead  in  any  sense  a 
different  life  in  the  developed  society  from  that  which  they 
would  have  led  in  the  simpler  society.  Perhaps  we  can  dis- 
cover these  differences  only  by  looking  at  the  two  societies  as 
wholes,  and  by  inferring  the  effect  which  the  more  developed 
sort  of  association  must  have  upon  the   individuals.      [226] 

There  is  another  sort  of  growth  that  takes  place  in  societies. 
We  may  describe  it  as  increased  compactness.  This  does  not 
necessarily  mean  merely  that  the  people  are  nearer  to  each 
other  in  space,  though  this  is  likely  to  be  one  element  of  the 
growth.  We  have  the  tradition  of  the  settler  in  our  western 
country,  whose  nearest  neighbor  was  six  miles  away.     When 


146  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

another  family  settled  nearer  to  his  claim,  he  abandoned  it  and 
moved  on,  because  he  "  wanted  breathing- room."  On  the 
other  hand,  we  may  cite  the  social  growth  that  is  seen  in  the 
introduction  of  the  rural  telephone  and  rural  free  delivery. 
The  farming  population  of  a  district  which  shows  this  growth 
may  not  have  increased,  but  the  society  has  nevertheless  become 
more  compact  through  these  facilities  for  communicating  ideas. 
A  society  whose  members  occupy  a  given  number  of  square 
miles  has  a  very  different  character,  if  it  is  without  these 
agencies,  from  a  society,  otherwise  of  the  same  heredity. and 
living  in  the  same  conditions,  plus  these  instruments.  There 
is  growth  in  firmness  of  texture,  so  to  speak,  as  well  as  in  bulk. 
[227] 

These  facts  about  societies  are  so  intimately  connected 
with  each  other  that  it  is  difficult  to  speak  of  one  phase  or  ele- 
ment without  at  the  same  time  speaking  of  others.  Thus  we 
have  already  implied  a  further  incident  of  social  growth,  viz. : 
as  a  general  riile,  the  larger  a  society  becomes,  the  more  will  its 
structure  become  varied.  This  law  holds  good  of  societies  of 
the  same  order,  but  not  necessarily  betw^een  societies  of  differ- 
ent orders.  A  banking  association  of  one  hundred  members 
would  have  a  structure  many  times  as  complex  as  a  farmers' 
club  with  the  same  number  of  members.  If  the  banking  asso- 
ciation started  with  a  capital  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
its  structure  would  doubtless  be  much  simpler  than  when  it 
had  increased  its  capital  to  ten  million  dollars,  with  correspond- 
ing increase  of  stockholders,  depositors,  and  customers.  If 
the  farmers'  club  should  meanwhile  become  a  farmers'  alliance, 
with  one  hundred  times  the  membership  of  the  original  club, 
its  structure  would  meanwhile  have  become  more  complicated; 
but  it  might  still  be  rather  sini])le  in  cc^nparison  with  the 
banking  association,  even  in  its  earliest  form. 

In  the  case  of  such  a  society  as  a  town,  we  may  see  the  fact 
of  increasing  structure  with  increasing  population,  though  the 
two  things  are  by  no  means  in  any  constant  proportion  to  each 
other.     Within  my  recollection,  a  certain  New  England  town 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  147 

had  neither  health  officer,  undertaker,  lamp-Hghter  ( for  it  had 
no  street  lamps),  caterer,  street-railway  employees  (for  it  had 
no  street  railways),  superintendent  of  schools,  sewer-inspector 
(for  it  had  no  sewers),  policemen,  telephone  employees  (for 
it  had  no  telephones),  nor  regular  fire-fighters.  With  constant 
growth  in  population,  the  town  has  exchanged  its  political 
structure  for  that  of  a  city,  and  has  supplied  each  of  these 
missing  elements  in  its  make-up.  Similar  changes  are  inci- 
dental to  all  social  growth.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  used  to  say 
that  his  first  church  consisted  of  himself  as  pastor,  sexton, 
chorister,  and  sometimes  as  congregation.  Before  he  moved 
on  to  a  more  prominent  pastorate,  the  church  had  its  full 
quota  of  officers,  with  a  considerable  membership.  Thus,  as 
societies  increase  in  size,  they  almost  invariably  increase  in 
complexity.  This  change  has  endless  consequences  for  the 
members  of  societies.  These  are  matters  for  more  special 
divisions  of  sociology,  and  they  present  some  of  the  urgent 
problems  of  practical  life.     [229-33] 

Not  to  follow  out  these  observations  about  social  structure 
into  more  minute  details,  we  may  pass  from  the  structure  phase 
of  society  to  another,  closely  connected  with  it  and  largely 
dependent  upon  it ;  yet  the  two  phases  have  to  be  sharply  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other  before  either  can  be  understood 
very  thoroughly.  Societies  have  structures,  because  societies  con- 
sist very  largely  of  services  rendered  by  member  to  member, 
and  structures  are  means  by  which  these  services  are  secured. 
As  a  rough  general  principle,  the  complexity  of  a  society  is 
in  direct  proportion  to  the  number  of  services  exchanged 
between  its  members.  The  principle  would  be  more  exact  if  we 
made  it  express,  not  only  the  number  of  the  services,  but  their 
regularity,  and  the  degree  of  assurance  afforded  in  the  society 
that  the  services  will  be  available  when  needed.  This  approach 
to  precision  is  not  necessary  for  our  present  purpose.  Our 
emphasis  is  merely  upon  the  fact  that  a  society  is  an  entity 
within  which  services  are  exchanged  between  individuals,  and 
that  this  exchange  of  service  has  relations,  both  as  cause  and 


148  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

effect,  to  the  existence  of  structure.  This  fact  again,  of  ser- 
vices as  a  normal  incident  in  society,  is  pivotal  both  in  general 
sociology  and  in  practical  social  problems.  A  nciv  service  is 
needed,  or  an  old  service  is  suspended  or  retarded,  is  one  way 
of  telling  the  story  of  social  crises,  from  the  departure  of  the 
Hebrew  shepherds  from  Egypt,  and  the  servile  revolts  in 
Rome,  and  the  French  Revolution,  to  a  miners'  strike,  or  a 
merger  suit,  or  a  struggle  between  the  "  stalwarts  "  and  the 
"  half-breeds  "  in  a  political  party.  Society  is  an  entity  which 
exists  by  virtue  of  incessant  interchange  of  service  between 
the  members.  If  we  can  succeed  in  setting  in  order  all  the 
essential  truth  about  the  relations  of  services  to  each  other,  we 
shall  have  gone  a  long  distance  toward  developing  a  science  of 
sociology.     [234-7] 

At  this  point  we  may  look  ahead  a  little,  and  anticipate 
something  which  will  be  insisted  upon  at  length  when  we 
advance  to  the  view-point  represented  by  Schaffle.  We  have 
used  the  social  term  "  service  "  in  place  of  Spencer's  biological 
term  "  function."  Spencer  meant  by  "  function  "  neither  more 
nor  less  than  we  want  the  term  "  service  "  to  express  at  this 
point.  When  we  come  to  occupy  Schaffle's  point  of  view,  we 
shall  find  that  he  has  his  eye  all  the  time  pointed  directly  at 
social  functions,  and  only  indirectly  at  social  structures.  It 
may  seem,  therefore,  that  there  is  really  no  gain  in  turning  for 
guidance  from  Spencer  to  Schaflfle.  It  may  seem  that  the  latter 
has  carried  his  analysis  no  farther  than  the  former.  We  shall 
find  that  this  is  a  mistake,  and  the  clue  to  the  mistake  is,  in  a 
word,  this:  Spencer  is  chiefly  interested  in  demonstrating 
tlwt  functions  are;  Schaffle  is  chiefly  interested  in  demonstrat- 
ing zvhat  functions  are.  The  one  is  busy  with  showing  how 
functions  work  together  in  a  system ;  the  other  tries  to  point 
out  the  different  kinds  of  work  that  the  various  functions  per- 
form. Spencer  consequently  treats  functions  structurally; 
Schaffle  treats  functions  functionally.  Later  on  we  shall 
develop  this  distinction,  and  show  its  imix^rtance.  Meanwhile 
we  may  add  further  details  to  our  schedule  of  structural  facts 
in  society. 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  149 

The  arrangements  of  individuals  into  somewhat  per- 
manent relationships,  or  structures,  come  about,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  consequence  of  utilities  which  people  discover,  acci- 
dentally or  otherwise,  in  those  arrangements.  To  take  one  of 
the  simplest  cases :  Two  woodsmen  may  have  no  personal 
interest  in  each  other,  but  both  are  trying  to  earn  a  living 
clearing  neighboring  pieces  of  forest.  The  trees  are  so  big 
that  after  the  trunks  have  been  trimmed  neither  woodsman 
alone  could  move  one  end  of  the  logs.  From  sheer  economic 
necessity  the  personally  indifferent  individuals  combine  their 
efforts.  Together  they  can  handle  the  logs  quite  easily,  and 
roll  them  into  positions  from  which  they  may  be  floated  toward 
the  mill.  The  skilful  combination  of  efforts  between  these  two 
men  is  an  instance  of  social  structure,  serving  as  a  device  to 
accomplish  work.  In  general,  this  is  the  underlying  meaning 
of  social  structures  always.  People  instinctively  or  deliberately 
arrange  themselves  in  adjustments  that  have  the  effect  of 
devices,  tools,  instruments,  to  serve  purposes  of  some  sort  that 
could  not  be  as  conveniently  accomplished,  if  at  all,  vyithout 
such  arrangements.  These  purposes  are  not  merely  economic. 
Political  structures  are  devices  to  gain  political  ends;  social 
structures,  in  the  special  sense,  are  devices  for  achieving  cer- 
tain purposes  of  polite  intercourse ;  so  of  scientific,  educational, 
artistic,  professional,  religious  structures;  etc.,  etc.  The 
arrangement  of  boss  and  crew,  of  foreman  and  operatives,  of 
manager  and  clerks,  of  teacher  and  pupils,  of  pastor  and  parish, 
of  author  and  publisher,  etc.,  throughout  the  whole  range  of 
social  relations,  always  has  in  it  more  or  less  of  this  device,  or 
instrument,  element,  and  can  be  thoroughly  accounted  for  only 
when  this  element  is  taken  at  its  full  value  into  the  reckoning. 
Soldiers  are  not  useless  ornaments;  they  are  devices  for 
defending  people  w^ho  are  not  soldiers.  Bishops,  and  judges, 
and  editors,  and  artists  are  not  cases  of  superfluous  people  who 
have  happened  on  ways  of  getting  along  without  paying  for 
their  keep ;  they  are  instruments  for  kinds  of  work  which  the 
interests   of  other   people   demand.      With   certain   apparent 


150^  GENERAL   SOCIOLOGY 

exceptions,  which  we  must  talk  about  presently,  this  is  the 
elementary  fact  in  all  social  structures. 

But  society  is  such  a  complicated  affair  that  we  cannot  do 
justice  to  it  in  such  simple  terms.  The  work  that  men  carry 
on  is  so  interwoven  that  the  means  for  carrying  it  on  must  be 
described  in  ways  that  recognize  its  complexity.  In  order  that 
a  most  trifling  piece  of  work  may  be  performed  for  me  this 
morning,  the  aid  of  thousands  of  men,  several  thousand  miles 
apart,  has  to  be  brought  into  requisition.  Months  ago  a  paper 
factory  turned  out  its  product;  a  force  of  engravers  did  their 
work;  manufacturers  of  pens,  and  other  manufacturers  of 
ink,  furnished  writing  material;  furniture-makers  contributed 
tables  and  desks  and  office  requisites  at  various  points;  men 
collected  and  distributed  mail  from  boxes  that  other  men  made, 
and  into  bags  and  pouches  made  by  still  others ;  transported  in 
Avagons  built  by  others,  drawn  by  horses  raised  by  others  and 
stabled  by  others;  deposited  in  cars  constructed  elsewhere, 
attached  to  trains  operated  by  men  of  another  type,  and 
running  over  roads  built  by  still  others,  and  managed  by 
others;  distributed  in  Chicago,  and  brought  to  my  door  by  the 
last  of  the  tens  of  thousands  who  have  directly  or  indirectly 
had  a  share  in  the  errand.  The  note  from  my  friend  in  San 
Francisco,  which  he  sent  at  a  total  cost  of  perhaps  three  cents 
for  materials  and  delivery,  is  merely  one  of  a  thousand  daily 
evidences,  too  familiar  to  provoke  reflection  even  in  the  most 
monotonous  lives,  that  society  is  equipped  with  wonderfully 
effective  systems  of  contrivances  for  serving  its  needs.  Thus 
the  initial  fact  of  structure  becomes  the  larger  fact  of  device 
for  ivork,  and  the  still  larger  fact  of  organisations  of  devices 
with  higher  and  higher  correlations  of  agencies  for  work. 

We  have  no  single  and  final  scheme  for  describing  the 
systems  of  agencies  into  which  the  elementary  structural 
arrangements  of  men  are  organized  throughout  a  national 
society.  [241-55]  These  agencies  cross  one  another,  and 
co-operate  with  each  other  in  so  many  ways  that  we  cannot 
speak  of  these  co-operating  persons  as  though  they  were  so 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  131 

many  cogs,  or  levers,  or  belts,  always  in  one  place  in  a  machine. 
Take  a  newspaper,  or  a  telephone  exchange,  or  a  public  school, 
or  a  church,  or  a  saloon.  It  is  easy  enough  to  say  what  either 
of  these  devices  does  in.  the  way  of  work,  in  its  usual  routine ; 
but  it  is  impossible  to  say  of  either  of  them,  when  all  the  rela- 
tions of  its  activities  are  traced  out,  that  it  is  confined  to  one 
work  rather  than  another.  Either  of  these  devices  may  lend 
itself  on  occasions  to  work  of  feeding  the  hungry,  clothing  the 
naked,  guarding  public  health,  protecting  against  crime,  help- 
ing the  fire  department,  promoting  all  branches  of  industry, 
trade,  professional  action,  education,  morals,  or  religion.  It 
is  accordingly  impossible  to  divide  human  beings  as  if  they 
were  physical  machines,  and  to  say  of  one  man  that  he  is  part 
of  the  telephone  system,  another  a  part  of  the  telegraph  sys- 
tem, another  a  part  of  the  educational  system,  etc.  Every  man 
is  a  part  of  many  social  structures,  and  all  attempts  to  partition 
society  off  are  consequently  more  or  less  arbitrary.  It  is  a 
fact,  however,  that  there  are  certain  great  groupings  which 
arrange  the  members  of  society  into  systems  of  activities  that 
take  charge  of  certain  great  divisions  of  human  service.  In 
showing  this,  Spencer  has  in  mind,  more  than  he  seems  to  be 
aware,  the  facts  of  society  considered  with  reference  merely  to 
its  material  wants.  He  shows  truly  that  in  this  respect  a 
society  like  America  may  be  divided  into  three  great  systems 
of  structures :  First,  the  people  engaged  in  getting  the  differ- 
ent kinds  of  raw  material  demanded  by  our  present  wants,  and 
in  working  over  that  raw  material  into  forms  that  are  avail- 
able for  use.  These  may  be  called  the  national  providers. 
Second,  the  people  who  carry  on  the  work  of  getting  all  these 
material  supplies  from  the  places  where  they  are  produced  to 
the  persons  w^ho  need  to  use  them.  Here  belong  not  only 
teamsters  and  railroad  men  and  sailors  and  longshoremen,  but 
traders  and  bankers,  whose  help  is  necessary  in  effecting 
exchanges.  We  may  call  this  whole  body  of  men  the  carriers. 
Third,  we  have  the  men  who  are  necessary  as  checks  upon  the 
selfishness  of  people  who  are  too  much  interested  in  their  own 


152  .  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

private  schemes  to  do  their  part  honorably;  or  men  who  are 
needed  to  help  keep  the  business  of  providers  and  carriers  from 
getting  tangled  because  of  mistakes  and  misfortunes  that 
special  attention  may  avert.  These  are,  in  the  first  place,  legis- 
lators, judges,  and  executive  ofiicers,  police,  armies,  and  vari- 
ous voluntary  agencies.  We  may  call  these  the  organizers. 
We  may  say,  then,  that  America,  considered  as  an  association 
of  people  satisfying  merely  physical  wants,  has  a  structure 
containing  a  system  for  providing,  another  for  carrying, 
another  for  organizing. 

It  is  literally  true  that,  in  our  present  state  of  civilization, 
the  energies  of  a  nation  are  very  largely  expended  in  satisfying 
the  fundamental  physical  wants.  It  is  very  natural  to  think 
of  these  three  systems  as  making  up  the  structure  of  the  nation. 
They  do  this,  however,  only  in  a  sense  in  which  the  parts  of  a 
house  constitute  a  home.  The  mere  shelter  is  not  the  home, 
but  the  family  life  domiciled  in  the  shelter  is  necessary  to 
complete  that  idea.  So  of  the  structure  of  a  nation.  There  is 
all  that  pertains  to  the  knowledge,  the  sentiments,  the  ideals, 
the  tastes,  the  religion  of  the  people.  These  are  realities  that 
require  their  social  structures  just  as  literally  as  the  physical 
wants  demand  them.  We  must  take  this  grouping  of  struc- 
tures into  the  providing,  the  carrying,  and  the  organizing  sys- 
tems, as  merely  one  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  social 
structures  arrange  themselves  in  complex  systems  of  structures. 

We  have  thus  elaborated  Spencer's  idea  sufficiently  for  our 
present  purpose.  After  sociological  analysis  has  gone  much 
beyond  anything  contained  in  Spencer's  scheme,  it  becomes 
profitable  to  use  this  structural  conception  in  much  greater 
detail.  For  many  purposes  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  social 
types  from  the  smallest  to  the  largest  groups,  and  to  study  the 
laws  of  their  development  out  of  and  into  other  types.  In 
order  to  do  this  effectively,  there  must  be  minute  analysis  of 
contrasts  in  structure  which  mark  the  types.  Without  dwelling 
on  this  structural  conception  further  at  present,  we  may  pass 
to  a  more  intimate  conception.     We  register  here  a  repetition 


THE  VALUE  OF  SPENCER'S  METHOD  153  ^ 

of  the  central  notion  in  the  whole  Spencerian  scheme ;  viz. : 
The  members  of  society,  from  the  very  earliest  stages,  arrange 
themselves  in  somezvhat  permanent  forms;  these  forms  are 
rearranged  in  adaptation  to  varying  needs;  the  forms  are 
related,  both  as  cause  and  effect,  to  the  individuals  who  make 
up  the  society;  they  are  thus  factors  that  may  never  be  left  out 
of  account  in  attempts  to  understand  real  life. 

All  this  we  may  accept  as  fully  as  Spencer  did,  but  it  is  no 
longer  possible  to  let  this  fact  of  structure  fill  up  as  large  a  part 
of  our  interpretation  of  society  as  it  did  in  Spencer's  system. 
We  must  add  to  this  elementary  insight  into  social  facts,  per- 
ceptions that  will  penetrate  deeper  into  social  essentials. 


PART   III 

SOCIETY  CONSIDERED  AS  A  WHOLE  COMPOSED  OF  PARTS 

WORKING  TOGETHER  TO  ACHIEVE  RESULTS 

(FUNCTION) 

(An  Interpretation  of  Schdffle) 


CHAPTER   X 
A  CONSPECTUS  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  SCHEME* 

If  it  were  merely  a  matter  of  introducing  another  author, 
no  matter  how  well  known  and  highly  respected  among  soci- 
ologists, it  would  hardly  be  justifiable  to  mention  Schaffle  at 
all.  From  such  signs  as  I  can  discover,  it  seems  probable  that 
there  are  a  score  of  leading  writers  on  sociology  whose  actual 
contributions  to  the  science  are  better  known,  among  students 
of  the  subject  generally,  than  those  of  Schaffle.  His  name  is 
now  seldom  omitted  from  references  to  the  recent  literature, 
but  there  are  only  rare  indications  that  those  who  name  him 
have  read  him.  In  general,  he  is  cited  chiefly  as  an  awful 
example  of  the  vices  of  the  biological  method  of  interpreta- 
tion. By  general  consent,  that  method  is  now  ranked  as  crude 
at  best,  serviceable  for  stimulating  attention  and  for  rudimen- 
tary exposition,  rather  than  for  strict  science.  It  is  a  pre- 
liminary expedient,  rather  than  a  factor  in  final  knowledge. 

If,  then,  Schiiffle  were  merely  an  inventor  of  a  few  varia- 
tions of  the  biological  imagery  for  representing  society,  which 
has  probably  had  its  largest  vogue  already,  he  would  not  be 
worth  our  notice.  Apparently  most  of  the  people  who  know 
his  name  imagine  that  this  is  the  case,  unless  they  are 
acquainted  with  his  economic  writings,  and  rate  them  high 
enough  to  overbalance  the  supposed  worthlessness  of  his 
sociology. 

I  have  no  disposition  to  spend  time  contending  for  Schaffle, 
and  I  shall  not  discuss  his  analysis  of  society  in  detail ;  but  the 
place  assigned  to  him  in  this  outline  is  due  to  an  element  in  his 
system  which  is  a 'necessary  transition  from  a  cruder  to  a  less 
crude  conception  of  the  social  reality.  As  an  aid  to  comparison 
of  his  range  of  thought  with  Spencer's,  a  translation,  slightly 

*  Cf.  Small  and  Vincent,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Society,  Book  IV. 

157 


158  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

abbreviated,  of  the  table  of  contents  of  Ban  und  Lehen  des 
socialcn  Kdrpers  (2d  ed. )  follows: 

SCHAFFLE'S   ANALYSIS   OF   SOCIAL   FUNCTIONS 

PART    I.       THE    GENERAL    THEORY    OF    FORMS    AND    FUNCTIONS 

(Social  Morphology,  Social  Physiologj-,  and  Social  Psychology.) 

Book  I.     Introduction. 

Book  II.    The  Elements  of  the  Social  Body,  and  the  Primary  Phys- 
iological Unity  of  the  Same,  or  the  Family. 

Div.  I. 

Sec.      I.    The  physical  environment  and  the  elements  of  the  social 

body  in  general. 
Sec.     II.    The  physical  environment  as  social  environment,  or  the 

land. 
Sec.  III.    The  elementary  parts  and  functions  of  the  social  body 
itself. 
First.     The  passive  element,  or  property. 

1.  Property  phenomena  in  general. 

2.  The   separate   materials    of  public   property,   especially 
the  symbolic  goods. 

Second.     The  active  elements  of  the  social  body ;    the  indi- 
vidual. 

1.  Bird's-eye  view ;   fundamental  conceptions  (spiritualism 
and  materialism). 

2.  The  several  fundamental  types  of  the  psychical  activity 
of  individuals  ;    representation. 

A.  Reflection ;    cognition. 

B.  The  feelings  and  the  evaluating  activity. 

C.  The  transcendental  elements  in  the  human  mind ; 
the  symbolism  of  transcendental  ideals ;  specula- 
tive philosophy ;    religion. 

Div.     II.    The   Primary,   Physiologically   Determined   Element,  or  the 
I-'amily. 
Sec.       1.    General  survey. 
Sec.     II.    The  structure  of  the  family. 
First.        The  family  property. 
Second.     The  members. 
Third.        The  organization  of  the  family. 
Sec.  III.    The  function  of  tlie  family. 


A  CONSPECTUS  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  SCHEME  159 

Sec.  IV.    The  discharge  of  social  functions  by  the  family;    heredi- 
tary monarchy  and  capital. 
Sec.     V.    Phenomena  of  disruption  of  the  family. 
Book  III.     The  Simple  Voluntary  Social  Combinations    (not  physio- 
logically determined;    the  theory  of  social  tissues). 
Div.      I.    The  Elementary  Aggregations;    Classification  of  the  Same; 
the  Different  Combinations  of  Masses;    the  Equilibrium  of 
the  Various  Sorts  of  Mass-Combinations. 
Div.     II.    The  Functionally  Different  Elementary  Combinations. 
First.        The  universal  phenomena. 
Second.     The  five  elementary  social  tissues. 

1.  The  fundamental  device  of  settlement. 

2.  The  fundamental  devices  for  protection. 

3.  The  housekeeping  (economic)   devices. 

4.  The  technical  apparatus ;    devices   for   application   of  skill 

and  power. 

5.  The  elementary  spiritual  combinations. 

Div.  III.     Special  Aspects  of  the  Spiritual    (Psycho-Physical)    Com- 
binations. 
Book  IV.     The  Simple  Institutions  or  Organs  of  the  Social  Body, 
AND  their  Origin  (Organization). 
Div.  I.    General  View. 

Sec.     I.    Complete  and  incomplete  organs. 
Sec.  II.    The  impulses  to  construction  of  organs. 
Div.  II.    The  Subjective  and  the  Objective  Side  of  Social  Organization. 
Sec.  I.    Theory  of  the  membership  of  society. 

1.  The  general  articulation  of  society. 

2.  The  special  forms  of  articulation. 

A.  The  forms  of  the  individual  organizing  impulse. 

B.  The  voluntary    collective    institutions,    or   the    private 
unions. 

C.  The  public  institutions. 
Sec.  II.    Theory  of  social  organization. 

1.  The  construction  of  the  organs  out  of  the  five  elementary 
combinations. 

2.  The  elementary  processes  in  the  operation  of  the  organiza- 
tion ;  the  appropriation  of  goods ;  the  acquisition  of  per- 
sons ;    examination,  appointment,  training. 

Div.  III.     The  Chief  Institutions,  or  Systems  of  Social  Organs. 
Book  V.    The  Spiritual  Life  of  Society  (Social  Psychology). 
Div.  I.     The  Fundamental  Facts. 

Sec.        I.    Division  and  unification  of  the  total  spiritual  labor. 


i6o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Sec.      IL    Review  of  the  elementary  psychological  apparatus. 

Sec.     in.    Quantitative  determination  of  the  spiritual  energies  of 
the  people. 

Sec.     IV.    The    threshold    phenomena    in    the    spiritual    life    of 
society. 

Sec.      V.    The  extension  of  the  circumference  of  social  conscious- 
ness ;    publicity. 

Sec.     VI.    The  socio-psychological  law  of  contrast. 

Sec.  VII.    Authority  and  dependence ;    publicity,  the  public,  public 
opinion  and  the  daily  press ;    pathological  conditions. 
Div.  II.    The  Distinct  Elementary  Combinations  in  the  Spiritual  Life 
of  Society. 

Sec.     I.    The  social  activity  of  observation  and  of  executive  action. 

Sec.  II.    The  social  process  of  cognition,  feeling,  and  will. 

1.  The  intellectual  phase  of  social  life. 

2.  The  evaluating  activities  of  society;    honor  and  distinction, 
ornamentation  and  decoration. 

3.  The  ethical  life  of  society. 

A.  In  general. 

B.  Distinction  between  action  and  willing. 

C.  The  social  movement  as  a  system  of  psychically  con- 
trolled natural  movements. 

D.  The  ideal  of  "  social  mechanics ;  "  compromise,  oppo- 
sition. 

E.  The  process  of  social  volition  in  its  various  stages. 

a)  Preliminaries  to  decision,  agitation  and  party  sys- 
tems. 

b)  Actual  decision. 
Sec.  III.      Law  and  morality. 

A.  In  general. 

B.  Morality. 

C.  Law. 

Div.  III.    The    Higher   Reproduction   of  the    Intellectual   Life  of   the 
Individual  in  the  Spiritual  Life  of  Society  (Twenty  Theses). 

Book  VI.     The  Fundamental  Questions  in  the  General  Theory  of 
Evolution. 
Div.  I.    The  Gradation  of  Natural  and  Social  Creation. 
Sec.     I.    Survey. 
Sec.  II.    Animal  societies. 

I.    The  heterogeneous  animal  societies;    parasitism,  commen- 
sualism,  and  mutualism. 


A  CONSPECTUS  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  SCHEME  l6l 

2.    The  homogeneous  animal  societies. 

A.  Nutrition-society. 

B.  Propagation-society. 

C.  Animal  communities. 

Sec.  III.      The  gradation  of  social  development. 
Div.  II.    The      Nature-Philosophical      and     the      Social-Philosophical 
Theories  of  a  "  Natural "  Creation. 
Sec.        I.    Survey. 
Sec.       II.    Psychogenetic    and    psychological    insufficiency    of   the 

present  evolutionary  theory. 
Sec.     III.    Change    and    development;     causality    and    finality    in 

development. 
Sec.     IV.    "  Natural  selection  "  as  outcome  of  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation. 
Sec.      V.    Significance    of   the    theory   of   physical    evolution    for 

sociology. 
Sec.     VI.    The    charactertistic    traits    of    the    processes    of    social 

selection. 
Sec.  VII.    Formulation  of  the  law  of  social  development. 
Div.  III.    Height,    Type,    Direction,    Beginning,    and    Goal    of    Social 
Development. 
Sec.  I.    Time  and  space  in  relation  to  the  level  of  development. 

Sec.        II.    Morphological  phenomena  in  social  development. 
Sec.       III.    The  scale  of  social  development. 
Sec.       IV.    The  duration  of  civilization. 

Sec.        V.    The  parallelism  of  different  grades  of  development. 
Sec.      VI.    Types  of  development. 

Sec.    VII.    Developmental  types  and  developmental  grades. 
Sec.  VIII.    Relativity    and   timeliness    in    the   directions   of   social 

development. 
Sec.       IX.    The  earliest  signs  of  social  differentiation  and  integra- 
tion. 
Sec.        X.    The  progressive  tendency  toward  the  common  civiliza- 
tion of  all  peoples  in  a  social  body. 

Book  VII.     The  Diverse  Elementary  Facts  in   Social  Development. 
Div.      I.    Law  and  Custom  as  Stages  in  Social  Development. 
Div.     II.    The  Agents  That  Take  Part  in  Social  Development. 

Sec.     I.    The  forms  of  social  agents  and  powers,  and  their  develop- 
ment. 
Sec.  II.    The  necessary  development  of  freedom  and  equality. 
Div.  III.    Social  Variability,  Adaptation,  and  Heredity. 
Sec.      I.    The  phenomena  of  variation. 


i62  GENER.A.L  SOCIOLOGY 

Sec.    II.   The  phenomena  of  adaptation. 

Sec.  III.    The  phenomena  of  heredity,  tradition,  and  propaganda. 

Sec.  IV.    Preservation  and  progress. 

Div.  IV.    The  Course  of  the  Social  Struggle  fof  Existence. 
Sec.       I.    The  concepts  repose  (Rtihe).  peace,  conflict,  war. 
Sec.     II.    Stimulation  of  conflict;    its  objective  occasions  and  its 
subjective  motors. 
T.    The  instinct  of  multiplication ;    the  "  law   of  population " 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  evolutionary  theory. 

2.  Stimulation    of    conflict    through    increase    of    wants    and 
differences   in   opportunity   to   gratify   them. 

3.  Stimulation  of  conflict  through  endeavor  for  general  im- 
provement (public  spirit;    idealism). 

Sec.  III.    The  conflicting  interests. 

Sec.  IV.   The  factors  in  the  adjustment  of  conflicts;   accident  and 
force;   the  result. 

1.  Conjunction. 

2.  The  decisive  subjective  superiority. 

3.  The  species  of  superiority. 

4.  The  result. 

Sec.     V.    The  different  species  of  adjustments  of  social  conflicts 
and  of  results. 

1.  By  lot,  games,  speculation. 

2.  By  appeal  to  hand-to-hand  conflict,   foreign  and  domestic 
war. 

A.  Struggle  for  existence  against  external  nature    (pro- 
duction and  protection). 

B.  Self-help  among  human  opponents;    war  —  first,   for- 
eign ;    second,  domestic. 

3.  Adjustment  through  voluntary  agreement   (treaty). 

4.  Through  rivalry,  competition,  etc. 

Div.     V.    Politics  as  Bearer  of  the  Unity  of  Development. 
Div.  VI.    Internal   and    External,   Independent   and   Derived   Develop- 
ment. 
Sec.     I.    National  and  international  development. 
Sec.  II.    Derived   development,   especially   colonization. 
First.        Idea  and  nature  of  colonization. 
Second.     Species  and  grades  of  colonization. 
Third.       Obstacles  to  colonization. 

Fourth.     Colonization  as  abbreviated  repetition  and  intensifi- 
cation of  the  moral  type  of  the  mother-country. 


A  CONSPECTUS  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  SCHEME  163 

Fifth.       The  position   of  colonization   among  the  total   phe- 
nomena of  derived  development. 
Div.    VII.    The  Outcome  of  Social  Development;    Culture  and  Civili- 
zation. 
Sec.       I.    Moralization,  culture,  civilization. 
Sec.     II.    The  content  and  the  gradations  of  culture. 
Sec.  III.    The  content  and  the  gradation  of  civilization. 
Div.  VIII.    Conclusion :    The  Law  of  Evolution,  and  the   Possibility 
of  an  Ethical  Conception  of  the  World  (Weltanschauung). 

Book    VIII.    Special    Sociology    of   the   Individual;     Particularly    of 
Social  Psychogenesis. 
Div.      I.    Limitation  of  the  Problem  of  Special  Sociology. 
Sec.     I.    Survey  of  the  field  of  the  problems. 
Sec.  II.    Preliminary   limitation   of  the   problems. 
Div.     II.    Social  Anthropology   (Theory  of  Population ;    Statistics  of 
Population). 
Sec.  I.    Survey  of  the  tasks. 

Sec.        II.    The  mass  and  the  mass-movements  of  the  population. 
Sec.       III.    The  age-classes  and  their  movements. 
Sec.       IV.    Peculiar  somatic  traits  of  the  population. 
Sec.        V.    Sex  in  the  population. 
Sec.      VI.    Special    anthropological   marks :     differences   of   skull, 

brain,  size,  figure,  and  color. 
Sec.     VII.    Race-characteristics. 
Sec.  VIII.    Spiritual  characteristics  of  individuals. 
Sec.       IX.    The   connection   of   morality   with    differences    in   the 
external  characteristics  of  individuals. 
Div.  III.    The  Social  Derivation  of  Individual  Reason  and  Language. 
Sec.       I.    Introduction. 

Sec.     II.    Development  of  language  and  writing. 
Sec.  III.    Improvement  of  language. 
Sec.  IV.    Further  development  of  writing. 
Sec.    V.    Development  of  individual  reason. 

Book  IX.    The  Special  Sociology  of  the  Family. 
Div.     I.    General  Survey. 

Sec.       I.    Problems. 

Sec.     II.    History  of  cultural  evolution  in  family  relations. 

Sec.  III.    Family  property  in  particular. 

Sec.  IV.    Culture  history  of  marriage  in  particular. 
Div.     II.    The  Family  in  the  Visible  Future. 
Div.  III.    The  Family  and  the  General  Law  of  Evolution. 


i64  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Book  X.    The  External  "  Material  "  Existence  and  Life  of  the  People. 
Div.  L    The  Social  Life  in  a  Time  and  Space. 

A.  General  survey. 

B.  Time  divisions  as  social  phenomena. 

Sec.        L    The  generally  important  time-phenomena. 
Sec.      IL    Primary  devices  for  determining  time. 
Sec.     IIL    The  elements  of  the  social  time-organization. 
Sec.     IV.    Persons  concerned  with  time-divisions. 
Sec.      V.    Unity  of  standard  and  divisions  of  time. 
Sec.     VI.    Rise  of  systems  for  reckoning  time. 
Sec.  VII.    International  time-reckoning. 

C.  Occupancy  of  space,  and  the  organization  for  support  of  the 
social  body :  systems  of  settlement,  of  abode,  of  roads,  and  of 
transportation. 

Sec.  I.    Independent  scientific  treatment  of  the  subject. 

Sec.  II.  Elementary  articulation  of  the  parts  and  arrange- 
ments that  make  up  provisions  for  settlement  and 
trafific. 

Sec.  III.  The  principle  and  evolutionary  law  of  settlement 
and  of  traffic. 

Sec.       IV.    The  struggle  for  space. 

Sec.  V.  The  systematic  articulation,  and  growing  intensity 
of  the  social  organs  for  protection. 

Sec.  VI.  The  system,  or  so-called  "  web,"  of  means  for 
intercourse  in  space. 

Sec.  VII.  The  morphology  of  the  social  organism  for  pro- 
tection. 

Sec.  VIII.    Conceivable  expansion  of  these  systems. 

Sec.  IX.  Elementary  articulation  of  the  arrangements  for 
settlement  and  transportation. 

Sec.        X.    Relations   between   settlements  and  transportation 
systems    and    the    other    systems    of    organs    and 
functions  in  society. 
Div.     II.    The  Systems  for  Defense  and  Security. 
Div.  III.    Technique  as  a   Social   Phenomenon. 

Book  XI.     Internal  Life  of  the  People;    (Conclusion)   Public  Econ- 
omy. 
Div.       I.    Public  Economy  as  a  Species  of  Ethical  Transfer  of  Matter. 
Div.     II.    The  Principal   Conceptions  of  Economic  Theory. 
Div.  III.    The  Composition  of  the  System  of  Organs  in  Public  Econ- 
omy. 


A  CONSPECTUS  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  SCHEME  165 

Div.  IV.    Social  Determination  of  Values. 

Sec.       I.    The  determinants  of  exchange  value. 

Sec.     II.    Recent  theories  of  value. 

Sec.  III.    The  universal  measure  of  value   (measure  of  exchange 

value). 
Sec.  IV.    The     larger     determinants     of     exchange     equivalents ; 
"  capitalistic "    market    prices    and    systems    of    public 
taxation. 
Sec.     V.    External  organization  of  exchange  values ;    markets  and 
exchanges. 
Div.  V.     The  Organization  of  Special   Economic  Interests. 
Sec.       I.    Public  control  of  industries. 
Sec.    II.    Co-operative  economy  and  individual  economy  in  private 

law. 
Sec.  III.    Family  industry. 
Div.      VI.    Influence  of  State,  Law,  Custom  on  General   Industry. 
Div.     VII.    History  of  the  Development  of  Economic  Systems. 
Div.  VIII.    The  Modern  Economic  System  of  Free  Competition. 
Div.       IX.    Criticism  of  the  Capitalistic  Epoch. 
Div.        X.    Forecast  of  the  Economic  Future. 

Sec.  I.    Development  of  media  of  exchange. 

Sec.        II.    Regulation  of  social  demand. 

Sec.      III.    Public  regulation  of  production  and  exchange. 

Sec.       IV.    Means    for   assuring   general    economy   of   production 

and  of  circulation. 
Sec.        V.    The  distribution  of  the  national  income. 
Sec.      VI.    Industrial   regulation   of  consumption. 
Sec.     VII.    Reactions  outside  the  economic  sphere. 
Sec.  VIII.    Conceivable  overcoming  of  obstacles  in  transition. 
Div.      XI.   Increasing   Intensity,   Differentiation,   and   Integration   of 
National    Industry. 

Book  XII.    The  Subjective  (Ideal)  Life  of  the  People. 

Div.      I.    The  Social  Life  and  the  Intellectual  Nurture  of  the  People. 

Div.    II.    Popular  Education  and  the  School. 

Div.  III.    Science. 

Div.  IV.    The  Esthetic  Life  of  the  People. 

Book  XIII.     The  Subjective  Life  of  the  People  (Concluded). 

Sec.      I.    Idealism  in  its  religious  and  its  non-religious  manifestations 

in  society. 
Sec.    II.    The  attitude  of  the  church  toward  the   "  secular "   life  of 

society. 


i66  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Sec.  III.   The  ecclesiastical  machinery. 

Sec.  IV.   Development  of  religion  and  church. 

Book  XIV.     The  State  and  the  Community. 
Div.  I.    Introduction. 

Div.        IT.    Idea,  Purpose,  Origin,  and  Methods  of  the  State. 
Div.       III.    Composition  of  the  State. 
Div.       IV.    The  System  of  Civic  Organs. 
Div.        V.    Composite  States. 
Div.      VI.    Types  of  Constitutions. 
Div.    VII.    The  Civic  Functions. 

Sec.     I.    Politics  and  routine  administration. 

Sec.  II.    Organization  of  civic  activity  according  to  subject-matter. 

1.  The  general  function  of  developing  civic  power. 

2.  The  special   branches  of  civic   activity. 

A.  The  positive  services. 

B.  The  regulative  activities. 
Div.  VIII.    International  Relations. 

Div.      IX.   The  Stages  of  Civic  Development. 

Sec.     I.    The  State  and  the  law   of  evolution. 

Sec.  II.   The  five  stages  of  civic  development  up  to  the  present. 

1.  Undifferentiated  community. 

2.  The  State  of  classes,  officials,  and  feudatories. 

3.  The  city   or   citizens'    State. 

4.  The  territorial    State. 

5.  The  modern  State. 

6.  Probability    of    a    world-State? 

Book    XV.     The   Development   of  the    Social   Body   into   a    World- 
Population. 

Div.      I.    The  People. 

Div.  II.    The  Geographical  and  Political  World. 

Div.  III.    The  Various  Human  Stocks. 

Div.  IV.    Retrospect  and   Prospect. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE  VALUE  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  METHOD 

A  glance  at  the  foregoing  scheme  shows  that  it  uses,  in 
some  form  or  other,  all  the  conceptions  in  Spencer's  outline. 
Schaffle  even  elaborates  some  biological  parallels  more  mi- 
nutely than  Spencer  does.  He  dwells  at  great  length  upon  the 
fact  of  social  structure,  and  upon  analysis  of  social  structures. 
Accordingly,  few  people  have  taken  the  trouble  to  find  out 
whether  he  has  added  anything  to  the  Spencerian  system. 
There  is  nothing  in  Schaffle's  general  analysis  of  society  which 
might  not  be  grafted  upon  Spencer's.  There  is  nothing  which 
is  not  implied  in  Spencer's  terms,  and  possibly  it  is  all  expressed 
in  a  general  way  in  his  formulas.  Nevertheless,  one  cannot 
read  Schaffle  carefully  without  presently  becoming  aware  that 
the  "  social  bcxly  "  of  his  conception  has  more  of  real  life  in  it 
than  the  "  society  "  that  Spencer  dissects.  Spencer's  analysis 
afifects  one  more  like  the  disentangling  of  a  mechanical  puzzle, 
while  there  is  more  of  the  atmosphere  of  actual  life  in  Schaffle's 
description  of  the  social  body. 

The  difference,  as  I  see  it,  reduces  to  this :  Spencer  does 
not  succeed  in  making  his  interpretation  of  society  picture  it 
as  more  than  an  organization  of  mechanisms.  Schaffle's  cen- 
tral conception  of  society  is  of  an  organisation  of  work.  Of 
course,  mechanism  implies  work,  and  work  implies  mechanism. 
Moreover,  language  has  grown  up  in  such  connection  with  the 
working  processes  of  life  that  we  cannot  talk  of  mechanism 
without  talking  of  work,  and  vice  versa.  For  that  reason,  the 
ideas  of  mechanism,  structure,  and  work  (function)  are  in 
both  of  these  systems,  as  certainly  as  they  are  in  either.  They 
have  different  degrees  of  importance  in  the  two  systems.  The 
relative  prominence  of  structure  in  the  one  system,  and  the 
relative  importance  of  function  in  the  other,  give  them  the 

167 


i68  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

rank,  respectively,  of  a  first  step  and  a  second  step  in  approach 
to  adequate  analysis  of  human  association. 

Just  as  we  have  seen  that  arrangement  of  people  into  com- 
binations (structure)  is  one  of  the  prime  factors  in  shaping 
their  lives,  so  we  must  see  beyond  this,  and  become  equally 
familiar  with  the  companion  fact  that  the  sort  of  work  per- 
formed by  means  of  these  structures  is  a  still  more  direct  and 
efficient  molder  of  our  lives.  We  may  go  even  farther  than 
this,  and  say  that  social  structures  are  only  external  conditions 
of  our  lives,  while  SQcial  functions  are  parts  of  life  itself. 

To  make  this  idea  clearer,  we  may  use  biological  distinc- 
tions of  structure  from  function,  with  no  thought  of  trying 
to  make  out  that  these  particular  structures  and  functions  have 
any  parallels  in  society. 

Let  us  suppose  that  we  have  never  heard  the  words  "  struc- 
ture "  and  "  function."  Let  us  suppose  we  are  attending  our 
first  demonstration  in  anatomy.  The  professor  informs  us 
that  the  object  before  him  is  a  part  of  the  body  of  a  vertebrate 
of  a  high  order.  He  tells  us  he  will  show  how  it  is  put 
together.  He  begins  by  pointing  out  one  of  its  surfaces,  which 
he  calls  a  conjunctiva.  He  shows  that  this  surface  is  convex. 
He  points  out  that  there  is  a  part  of  the  same  body  which  is 
adjusted  as  a  movable  cover  for  this  convex  surface,  to  protect 
it  in  various  ways.  Then  he  shows  how  muscles  are  attached 
to  this  portion  of  the  body,  to  give  it  various  kinds  of  motion. 
Then  he  proceeds  to  dissect  the  different  layers  which  make  up 
this  part  of  the  body.  He  shows  that  it  has  three  coats,  to 
which  he  gives  names.  Then  he  points  out  a  peculiar  capsule 
in  the  center  of  the  front  portion  of  the  part  he  is  dissecting, 
and  he  gives  this  a  distinguishing  name.  Behind  this  capsule 
is  a  lluid  mass,  and  in  front  of  it  another  Huid.  Encircling 
the  cases  in  which  these  fluids  arc  carried  are  fibers  which  are 
woven  into  a  great  nerve  running  off  into  a  more  distant  part 
of  the  body.  So  the  demonstration  might  continue  down  to 
finer  and  finer  details,  and  not  a  word  might  be  said  about  any- 
thing except  the  way  in  which  this  piece  of  organic  tissue  is 


THE  VALUE  OF  SCHXFFLE'S  METHOD  169 

made.  Our  attention  is  centered  on  its  mechanical  arrange- 
ment.   The  least  possible  thought  is  given  to  what  it  is  all  for. 

It  may  be  that  I  have  not  even  suggested  by  these  vague 
terms  the  organ  that  I  have  in  mind.  The  moment  that  I  men- 
tion the  eye,  however,  we  are  aware  that  we  know  some  things 
about  the  eye  which  are  not  made  any  more  real  by  anatomical 
demonstration.  Dissection  brings  structure  to  light  that  we 
knew  nothing  about  before ;  but  we  did  know  before  what  the 
eye  can  do.  We  knew  the  various  kinds  of  skill  that  the  eye 
has.  We  knew  how  it  helps  us  judge  of  the  size  and  distance 
and  quality  of  objects  beyond  our  reach.  These  capacities  of 
the  eye  to  do  work  may,  in  their  turn,  be  analyzed  in  endless 
detail,  without  any  attention  whatever  to  the  particulars 
brought  to  view  by  the  anatomist.  In  other  words,  the  struc- 
ture of  the  eye  may  be  studied  with  no  regard  for  its  functions, 
and  the  functions  of  the  eye  may  be  studied  with  little  knowl- 
edge of  its  structure. 

It  usually  happens  in  actual  practice  that  our  knowledge 
of  structure  and  functions  in  organic  bodies  is  gained  some- 
what simultaneously,  and  when  we  think  of  the  one,  we  do 
refer  more  or  less  to  the  other.  It  should  be  evident,  how- 
ever, that  these  closely  related  things  are  not  one  and  the 
same  thing.  One  may  be  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
functions  of  the  ear,  without  an  item  of  information  about 
the  internal  structure  of  the  ear.  On  the  other  hand,  a  man 
deaf  from  his  birth  might  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  anatomy  of  the  ear,  while  he  might  never  be  able  to  form 
any  satisfactory  conception  of  the  functions  of  the  ear.  We 
may  be  expert  track  athletes,  with  but  the  most  shadowy 
notions  of  the  bones  of  the  foot,  or  of  the  muscles  in  any  part 
of  the  body.  The  structure  of  the  hand  is  one  thing:  the 
different  things  that  can  be  done  by  the  hand  are  quite  another 
matter;  etc.,  etc. 

Now,  people  are  not  merely  putting  themselves  in  structural 
formations.  People  are  incessantly  bringing  things  to  pass. 
These  achievements,  from  least  to  greatest,  are  certainly  as 


I70  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

definite  material  for  knowledge  as  the  mere  ways  in  which  men 
arrange  themselves,  with  reference  to  each  other,  in  the 
process  of  bringing  about  these  achievements.  It  was  this 
phase  of  society  that  was  most  prominent  in  Schaffle's  system. 
He  regarded  social  structure  as  the  leverage  which  made  social 
achievement  possible.  He  was  quite  correct  in  treating  social 
structure,  however,  merely  as  a  means.  He  was  interested  to 
go  on  from  the  elementary  fact  of  how  men  are  arranged,  to 
the  more  vital  fact  of  what  they  are  doing  by  means  of  these 
arrangements. 

With  the  success  of  Schaffle  in  carrying  out  this  idea  we  are 
not  now  concerned.  It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  him  step  by 
step.  The  facts  about  social  functions  are  important;  not  his 
way  of  treating  them.  We  may,  however,  allow  him  to  sug- 
gest certain  more  obvious  items  which  go  to  make  up  a  general 
outline  of  functional  relationships  in  society. 

Men  are  always  acting.  They  are  not  merely  existing,  like 
so  many  fossils  or  crystals  in  a  museum.  They  are  not  merely 
so  many  standing  illustrations  of  types  of  structure.  They  are 
doing  something.  The  like  is  true  of  men  in  groups  or  social 
structures.  A  family,  with  its  structure  of  more  or  less  equal 
partnership  of  husband  and  wife,  and  of  greater  or  less  sub- 
ordination of  children  to  parents,  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  as  a 
sample  of  how  individuals  can  be  grouped.  Any  and  every 
type  of  family  comes  into  being  because  there  are  certain  life- 
problems  to  be  solved,  and  because  experience  in  dealing  with 
the  problems  gradually  enforces  the  custom  of  approaching 
them  in  these  family  formations.  The  family  structure  then  is 
to  be  understood,  not  as  passive,  but  as  active.  It  does  work. 
So  of  economic,  professional,  political  structures.  They  are 
agencies  in  bringing  thinjjs  to  pass. 

What  are  the  sorts  of  things  that  are  brought  to  pass  in 
society,  not  what  are  the  mechanical  devices  by  which  they  are 
brought  to  pass,  is  the  central  question  from  the  functional 
point  of  view.  Schaffle  occupies  the  whole  of  his  first  volume 
and  the  first  fifty-seven  pages  of  the  second  volume  (i.  e.,  to 


THE  VALUE  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  METHOD  171 

the  end  of  Book  VIII)  with  the  morphology  and  evolution  of 
social  types.  This  would  seem  to  prove  that  structure  is  cen- 
tral with  him,  after  all.  In  spite  of  the  liberal  share  of  atten- 
tion given  to  these  aspects  of  society,  they  are  treated,  however, 
as  means  of  bringing  the  more  significant  aspects  into  clearer 
relief.  Beginning  with  Book  IX,  the  stress  falls,  not  on  the 
forms  or  the  methods  in  which  social  tissues  are  constructed, 
but  on  the  kinds  of  work  that  the  social  tissues  accomplish. 

Thus  the  family  has  the  task  of  providing  for  the  continu- 
ance of  the  race  —  propagation ;  for  securing  necessary  rela-  ^ 
tions  to  nature  —  settlement  and  shelter.  Then  it  falls  to  the 
family  to  do  much  of  the  elementary  work  of  preparing  the 
children  to  take  their  places  in  carrying  along  the  succession 
of  technical  workers,  and  observing  the  moral  standards,  the 
laws,  the  social  order,  the  religion,  that  are  traditional  in  the 
community. 

When  we  pass  from  the  family  to  larger  and  more  complex 
structures,  we  are  immediately  face  to  face  with  differences  of 
opinion  about  the  ways  in  which  they  should  be  classified.  For 
instance,  in  a  given  section  of  Chicago  is  a  population  of  about 
thirty  thousand  people  subsisting  directly  upon  one  industry. 
How  shall  we  treat  that  population  for  scientific  purposes? 
Shall  we  look  upon  them  as  falling  into  divisions  which  corre- 
spond with  the  categories  of  pure  economic  theory  ?  Shall  we 
treat  them  in  the  groupings  necessary  in  legal  theory?  Shall 
we  look  upon  them  in  the  subdivisions  which  their  race- 
differences  suggest?  Shall  we  deal  with  them  as  they  are 
subdivided  by  affiliation  with  political  parties  or  religious 
sects?  These  are  all  debatable  questions.  No  matter  what 
answer  we  might  reach,  the  main  point  which  we  are  now 
considering  could  not  be  permanently  affected.  In  each  and 
all  of  these  relationships,  men  are  bringing  things  to  pass  — 
they  are  functioning.  This  bringing  things  to  pass,  moreover, 
is  by  means  of  these  different  groupings,  or  in  spite  of  them. 
The  only  valid  way  of  deciding  what  use  to  make  of  these 
different  groupings,  in  making  up  our  whole  idea  of  the  thirty 


172  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

thousand  people  in  the  given  case,  is  to  find  out  what  part  each 
sort  of  grouping  plays,  pro  or  con,  in  their  bringing  things  to 
pass.  By  that  means  we  shall  at  last  arrive  at  a  conclusive 
way  of  associating  the  different  kinds  of  groupings  with  each 
other  in  our  theories. 

We  need  not  bother  ourselves  with  these  questions  now, 
however.  They  are  suggested  for  the  purpose  of  emphasizing 
the  point  that  we  need  not  be  turned  from  the  essential  thing, 
if  we  find  ourselves  dififering  radically  with  Schaffle  about 
proper  ways  of  classifying  social  structures  and  functions. 
What  we  are  chiefly  concerned  with  now  is  the  fact  that  there 
are  such  things  as  social  structures  and  functions.  Schaffle's 
analysis  of  the  latter  would  serve  to  bring  out  the  fact  of  their 
existence,  even  if  we  were  quite  sure  that  he  has  not  detected 
the  most  important  of  them,  nor  put  them  in  their  proper 
orders  and  degrees  of  dependence.  The  thing  to  insist  on  now 
is  that  we  get  deeper  into  the  essentials  of  society  when  our 
attention  is  fixed  on  what  society  is  doing,  than  when  we  stop 
with  making  out  the  types  and  sizes  of  social  formations. 

Accordingly,  we  may  take  the  next  step  in  company  with 
Schafifle.  He  passes  from  the  family,  and  what  it  does,  to  the 
"people"  (das  Folk).  He  speaks  of  "popular  existence"  and 
"popular  life"  (Book  X),  with  little  to  show  whether  he  is 
thinking  of  the  people  in  a  tribe,  or  the  people  who  make  up  a 
whole  civilization,  or  whether  he  is  using  the  concept  "  people  " 
in  highly  elastic  and  contractile  senses.  This  latter  is  really  the 
case.  He  is  not  thinking  of  mechanical  limitations  of  "  the 
people  "  in  any  way,  but  merely  of  all  the  people  who  have  an 
actual  part  in  fixing  the  general  conditions  of  life  within  a 
given  area.  With  that  understanding  he  can  make  out  a  good 
case  for  dividing  the  functions  which  people  must  perform,  as 
follows  (Books  X  and  XI)  :  In  the  first  place,  there  are  all  the 
tasks  which  radiate  from  the  necessity  of  getting  control  of  rela- 
tions in  time  and  space.  These  tasks  are  subdivided  into,  first, 
problems  of  settlement  and  transportation ;  second,  problems 
of  security  and  protection ;   third,  the  whole  technique  of  civic 


THE  VALUE  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  METHOD  173 

and  public  community  life;  fourth,  the  development  of  public 
industry,  or  the  whole  sphere  of  social  transmutation  of  matter. 
In  the  second  place,  there  are  the  functions  which  satisfy  the 
wants  of  the  inner  life,  which  fall  into  five  divisions,  viz. 
(Book  XII),  first,  social  intercourse;  second,  education;  third, 
science;  fourth,  aesthetic  life;  fifth,  the  religio-ecclesiastic  life. 
In  the  third  place,  the  functions  connected  with  the  chief  insti- 
tutions for  unified  volition  and  action  throughout  the  whole 
range  of  external  and  internal  life  —  the  tasks  of  State  and 
community. 

I  do  not  myself  consider  this  classification  a  very  skilful 
piece  of  work.  It  is  untenable  in  more  than  one  way.  It  does 
not  rest  on  a  single  principle,  and  the  functions  thus  scheduled 
are  neither  mutually  exclusive,  nor  are  they  listed  in  satisfac- 
tory correlations.  This  is,  nevertheless,  not  fatal  to  the  value  of 
the  exhibit.  The  main  thing  is  discernment  of  function,  as  a 
more  searching  test  of  the  meaning  of  human  actions  than 
mere  structure.  What  the  precise  functions  are  that  reveal 
this  meaning  most  fully  is  a  question  to  which  we  shall  come 
presently.  We  may  approach  it  by  pointing  out  that  just  as 
Spencer,  in  spite  of  himself,  tended  to  seek  the  meaning  of 
social  structure  in  structure,  so  Schaffle's  limits  are  indicated 
by  his  tendency  to  see  the  meaning  of  social  functions  in  func- 
tion, rather  than  in  causal  and  consequent  conditions  in  the 
persons  functioning.  That  is,  we  must  see  much  clearer  than 
either  Spencer  or  Schaffle  did,  that  no  social  function,  any 
more  than  a  social  structure,  is  an  end  in  any  final  sense.  It  is 
an  intermediate  factor,  that  gets  its  meaning  from  conditions 
in  persons,  which  conditions,  on  the  one  hand,  demand  and 
maintain  the  function,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  result  from  the 
function.  In  other  words,  while  function  is  more  than  struc- 
ture, people  are  more  than  both.  Any  analysis  of  social  facts 
that  rests  with  social  functions  in  the  abstract  is  necessarily 
noncommittal  as  to  the  final  interpretation  of  life. 

There  is  something  about  Schafifle's  treatment  that  suggests 
the  bureaucratic  order  in  which  he  grew  up.     Function  seems 


174  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

to  him  a  happy  way  of  giving  the  traditional  social  machineries 
something  to  do.  The  machineries  are  foreordained  parts  of 
the  universe.  Now,  if  we  find  a  function  that  employs  the 
machinery,  we  have  explained  the  machinery,  while  this  taken- 
for-granted  machinery  in  its  turn  explains  the  function !  That 
is,  we  have  the  family,  the  State,  the  church,  the  school,  the 
economic  system,  the  scientific  and  aesthetic  cultus;  now, 
keeping  themselves  busy  in  their  characteristic  fashion  is  their 
function.  Thus,  a  system  of  reasoning  in  a  circle  is  only 
partially  concealed  in  Schaffle's  conceptions.  As  mere  phe- 
nomena, not  inquired  about  further,  it  is  true  that  social 
structures  are  the  means  for  performing  social  functions,  and 
social  functions  are  the  ways  for  utilizing  social  structures. 
This  is  as  though  we  should  say,  for  instance :  "  Princes  are 
people  who  live  in  luxury,  and  maintain  an  ornamental  exist- 
ence, without  responsibility  for  earning  a  living;  on  the  other 
hand,  court  functions,  military  parades,  display  of  decora- 
tions, and  similar  spectacular  performances,  are  occupations 
to  employ  princes."  We  should  thereby  make  the  princes  and 
the  shows  account  for  each. other,  without  really  accounting 
for  either. 

What  I  am  trying  to  point  out  is  that,  after  we  have  recog- 
nized Schaffle's  merit  in  signalizing  the  fact  of  social  functions, 
over  and  above  social  structures,  we  must  deny  two  things : 
first,  that  he  succeeded  in  making  a  satisfactory  schedule  of 
social  functions;  and,  second,  that  he  discovered  the  proper 
center  from  which  to  find  the  meaning  of  social  functions.  Of 
course,  this  latter  failure  explains  the  former. 

The  proper  social  functions  are  the  activities  through  which 
the  essential  human  wants  are  evolved,  gratified,  balanced, 
adjusted  between  person  and  person,  and  then  started  on  their 
next  evolutionary  cycle.  These  functions  are  by  no  means 
identical  with  operation  of  the  structural  machinery  which  we 
call  institutions.  The  essential  social  functions  are  promotion 
of  the  primarily  individual  functions  of  securing  sustenance, 
controlling    nature,    estaijiishing    working    relations    between 


THE  VALUE  OF  SCHaFFLE'S  METHOD  175 

man  and  man  in  the  common  use  of  opportunity,  acquiring 
knowledge,  developing  aesthetic  activity,  and  realizing  religion. 
The  forms  and  combinations  of  these  functions  vary  infinitely, 
with  variations  in  the  stages  of  social  advancement,  and 
innumerable  minor  circumstances.  They  must  never  be  con- 
founded with  the  routine  operation  of  economic,  civic,  social, 
scientific,  artistic,  or  religious  structures.  These  routine  per- 
formances are  functions  in  the  narrow,  mechanical  sense,  but 
not  necessarily  in  an  intelligent  human  sense. 

For  instance,  the  function  of  a  State  is  to  maintain  civic 
order.  Russia  is  maintaining  civic  order  in  Finland.  Ergo, 
Russia  is  discharging  the  immanent  civic  functions.  The  con- 
clusion does  not  follow.  Civic  order  is  merely  one  of  the 
means  to  human  ends.  The  enlargement  and  enrichment  of 
the  lives  of  the  people  maintaining  the  order,  not  order  itself, 
is  the  criterion  of  civic  functions.  Russia  is  crushing  out  the 
life  of  the  Finns.  The  revolution  of  the  wheels  of  government 
according  to  a  despotic  system  is  not  discharge  of  the  indicated 
social  function.  It  is  obstruction  of  the  proper  function 
through  misuse  of  structure.  So  in  the  case  of  the  mediaeval 
Romish  church.  It  was  the  recognized  structure  in  the  service 
of  religion.  It  was  at  the  height  of  its  power  as  a  political 
and  police  force,  but  it  was  exterminating  rather  than  promot- 
ing religion.  Huss  and  Luther  and  Calvin  and  Knox  were 
promoting  the  real  functions  of  religion,  while  the  church  was 
satisfying  itself  with  a  routine  that  displaced  the  functions. 

Thus  we  must  distinguish  between  the  mere  workings  of 
social  machinery  and  the  discharge  of  social  functions.  When 
the  Russian  fleet  fired  on  the  English  fishing-vessels  in  the 
North  Sea  (October  24,  1904),  the  engines,  and  steering-gear, 
and  batteries  were  all  working  according  to  their  design ;  but 
these  workings  were  not  in  the  service  of  a  social  function,  in 
a  large  sense.  They  were  misapplied  to  the  jeopardizing  of 
the  whole  system  of  social  functions.  The  machinery  of  a 
runaway  engine  is  working  according  to  the  principles  of  its 
structure,  but  it  is  not  fulfilling  its  proper  office  in  the  economy 


176  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  life.  It  is  projecting  itself  to  certain  destruction.  In  like 
fashion,  we  must  draw  the  line  very  sharply  between  mere 
operation  of  the  social  devices  that  have  come  into  existence, 
and  the  performance  of  true  social  functions. 

The  latter  is  always  to  be  tested  by  finding  out  what  the 
motions  of  social  machinery  actually  have  to  do  with  the  real 
interests  of  the  persons  chiefly  concerned.  Judged  by  this  test, 
those  institutional  actions  alone  discharge  social  functions 
which  actually  help  more  than  they  hinder  the  general  process 
of  developing,  adjusting,  and  satisfying  the  wants  of  the  people 
whom  they  affect.  This  brings  us  to  the  perception  that  we 
cannot  make  the  most  of  the  notion  of  social  functions,  until 
we  find  a  way  of  representing  to  ourselves  a  sphere  of  relations 
by  which  the  functions  may  be  approximately  explained. 
Functions  are  parts  of  processes,  not  parts  of  machineries.  To 
know  social  functions,  as  far  as  they  are  knowable,  we  must 
become  acquainted  with  the  social  processes  within  which  they 
are  incidental. 

We  have  thus  taken  brief  account  of  two  conceptions  which 
have  been  prominent  in  the  history  of  sociological  theory :  the 
conception  of  social  structure,  and  that  of  social  functions. 
These  concepts  have  been,  in  turn,  centers  for  ambitious  socio- 
logical systems.  Those  systems  are  no  longer  regarded  as 
serious  competitors  for  leadership  in  social  theory.  They  have 
served  their  day,  and  social  theorists  cannot  be  fully  equipped 
without  thinking  through  the  problems  which  those  systems 
confronted  and  tried  to  solve.  The  clue  idea  in  each  of  those 
systems  is  not,  and  never  can  be,  obsolete.  The  concepts 
"social  structure"  and  "social  function,"  or  some  substitute 
which  we  cannot  imagine,  will  always  be  indispensable  in 
analysis  of  the  social  reality.  The  principal  deposit  of  perma- 
nent value  left  by  the  two  types  of  sociological  theory  developed 
around  the  two  notions  "structure"  and  "function,"  consists 
of  the  two  conceptions,  as  elementary  terms  in  more  adequate 
explanation.  The  work  of  testing  these  ideas,  as  embodied  in 
sociological  systems,  has  trained  thinkers  to  carry  analysis  far- 


THE  VALUE  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  METHOD  177 

ther,  and  to  propose  more  adequate  programs  of  social  interpre- 
tation. We  are  now  at  a  point  from  which  we  may  with  advan- 
tage approach  the  most  searching  scheme  of  social  analysis  that 
has  thus  far  been  proposed.  In  reaching  this  line  of  transition 
from  two  partial  views  of  social  reality  to  the  most  compre- 
hensive view  at  present  possible,  it  is  worth  while  tO'  take  time 
for  a  restatement  of  our  problem.  We  may  put  it  in  this 
summary  form : 

When  one  starts  to  think  about  the  facts  of  human  experi- 
ence, there  is  no  logical  stopping-place  until  anszvers  have  been 
found  to  the  questions:  ( i)  What  arc  the  essentials  in  human 
association?  (2)  Hozv  do  these  essentials  change  their  mani- 
festations from  time  to  time?  (^)  By  virtue  of  ivhat  influ- 
ences do  these  variations  occur?  (4)  What  social  aims  are 
reasonable  in  viezv  of  these  conclusions  from  experience? 

Every  scheme  of  sociology,  and  every  special  inquiry  that 
has  been  pursued  by  sociologists,  zvotdd  be  found  to  deal  zvith 
one  or  more  of  these  questions.  We  cannot  describe  the  zuork 
of  sociology  better  than  by  saying  it  is  an  attempt  to  anszver 
these  four  questions. 

However  the  sociologists  appear  to  differ  among  them- 
selves, very  slight  examination  will  show  that  every  one  of 
them  has  found  his  employment  in  trying  to  find  out  something 
that  would  tend  to  diminish  uncertainty  in  one  or  other  of 
these  directions.  All  the  different  systems  or  theories  of 
sociology  will  be  found  to  grapple  more  or  less  wisely  with 
some  part  of  these  questions.  What  the  sociologists,  and 
others  who  did  not  call  themselves  by  that  name,  have  done 
instinctively,  and  accidentally,  and  without  system,  must  be 
done  reflectively,  and  deliberately,  and  methodically,  if  our 
most  searching  questions  about  cause  and  effect  in  human 
experience  ever  receive  answer.  In  order  to  answer  these 
questions,  we  must  use  the  elementary  notions  "  structure " 
and  "  function  "  for  what  they  are  worth,  while  we  proceed  to 
more  searching  analysis  of  the  actual  social  process. 


ITS  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

An  illustration  at  the  outset  may  help  to  explain  these 
abstract  statements. 

We  find  at  a  given  spot  on  the  earth's  surface,  at  a  given 
time,  a  group  of  people  leading  a  quiet,  uneventful  life,  tending 
their  flocks,  and  tilling  the  soil  in  a  small  way.  In  another 
spot  we  find  the  temporary  bivouac  of  a  tribe  of  people  who 
never  stay  long  in  a  place;  who  never  hunt,  except  for  sport 
or  when  in  desperate  need ;  who  never  till  the  soil ;  but  they 
harry  peaceful  folk,  rob  them  of  their  food,  disperse,  enslave, 
or  kill  them.  At  another  spot  we  find  men  who  neither  till  the 
soil  nor  rob  those  who  do,  but  they  trade,  and  improve  their 
condition  by  passing  from  one  owner  to  another  the  things  that 
someone  else  has  made.  Again,  we  find  groups  of  men  who 
live,  not  by  farming,  nor  robbing,  nor  trading,  but  by  separat- 
ing themselves  from  their  fellows  and  praying,  relying  on  the 
seculars  to  furnish  material  support  for  this  spiritual  exercise. 
Or,  again,  we  find  groups  that  neither  farm  nor  rob  nor  trade 
nor  pray  —  at  least  not  as  a  vocation  —  but  they  devote  their 
time  to  increasing  knowledge.  In  each  case  we  may  compare 
the  group  with  others  doing  substantially  the  same  thing  in 
ways  so  different  that  we  may  easily  overlook  the  similarity. 
The  cattle-raider  of  the  Scotch  Highlands  seems  to  have 
nothing  in  common  with  the  East  India  Company  taking  pos- 
session of  a  continent,  the  white  settlers  pushing  the  American 
Indians  off  the  earth,  or  the  Russians  grasping  Manchuria. 
The  caravan  packed  with  curious  products  of  strange  lands 
hardly  betrays  relationship  with  the  ocean  liner  carrying 
freight  enough  to  burden  an  army  of  camels,  or  the  railroad 
train  trundling  masses  of  goods  at  a  speed  that  no  living 
creatures  could  overtake.  The  howling  dervish,  or  the  slayer 
of  sacrificial  beasts,  seems  to  pursue  totally  different  aims 
from  the  Salvation  Army  lassie  or  the  intoner  of  the  liturgy  of 
the  Anglican  church.  The  Chinese  mandarins  and  the  Hebrew 
scriljes  suggest  no  relationship  with  the  occupants  of  modern 
laboratories,  or  the  explorers  in  social  science.  Yet  one  does 
not  observe  any  type  of  man  long  without  beginning  to  sus- 


THE  VALUE  OF  SCHAFFLE'S  METHOD  179 

pect  that  one  may  find  in  it  every  other  type  of  man  more  or 
less  disguised.  One  gets  hold  of  the  idea  that  these  men  are 
all  alike ;  that  the  one  is  doing  what  all  are  doing,  and  that  all 
are  doing  what  the  one  is  doing.  We  get  the  notion  that,  if  we 
could  look  down  below  the  surface  of  these  lives  in  turn,  we 
should  find  radically  similar  springs  of  action,  and  we  should 
find  that  the  conduct  which  on  the  surface  seems  so  unlike  and 
unrelated,  really  is  the  same  essential  activity,  with  variations 
to  be  accounted  for  after  slight  attention  to  the  surroundings 
in  which  they  occur. 

What  is  the  key  to  this  identity  in  diversity?  How  may  we 
find  out  the  common  element  in  lives  that  seem  so  unlike? 
How  may  we  account  for  the  differences?  What  conception 
of  the  principles  that  should  govern  life  do  our  perceptions  of 
these  social  facts  and  laws  enforce? 

These  questions  must  be  asked  over  and  over  again,  and 
answered  with  reference  to  every  stage  of  human  develop- 
ment with  which  we  can  get  acquainted,  if  we  are  to  reach  the 
utmost  intelligence  possible  about  the  practical  problems  of 
modern  life.  These  questions  may  seem  at  first  abstract  and 
scholastic.  They  may  seem  to  concern  closet  philosophers 
merely.  To  be  sure,  they  can  have  no  direct  practical  value 
for  people  who  cannot  apply  large  generalizations  to  specific 
cases.  For  everyone  with  mental  power  to  correlate  the  par- 
ticular with  the  universal,  the  detail  with  the  principle,  the 
small  with  the  great,  these  questions  are  keys  to  intelligent 
conduct  of  life. 

Our  next  step  in  planning  adequate  methods  of  analyzing 
human  experience  will  be  an  approach  to  ways  of  answering 
these  questions. 


PART   IV 

SOCIETY    CONSIDERED    AS    A    PROCESS    OF    ADJUSTMENT 
BY   CONFLICT   BETWEEN   ASSOCIATED   INDIVIDUALS 

(An  Interpretation  of  Ratzenhofer) 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE   PROBLEM   RESTATED 

In  Parts  II  and  III  we  have  run  two  trial  surveys  over  the 
general  field  of  sociology,  but  its  contour  is  little  plainer  than 
it  was  in  the  beginning,  and  we  find  ourselves  again  at  the 
point  from  which  we  started. 

In  chap.  6  we  said  that  the  problem  of  sociology  is  to 
compose  our  scattered  views  of  society  into  a  truthful  com- 
posite picture.  We  have  examined  two  outlines  of  composite 
pictures  of  society,  and  have  found  that  there  is  truth  in  them, 
or  that  they  suggest  truth,  but  that  they  are  far  from  satisfying 
our  demand  for  a  literal  account  of  human  relations. 

Criticism  of  these  two  proposals  in  solution  of  the  socio- 
logical problem  has  made  demands  for  more  specific  analysis 
and  description  and  explanation.  For  example,  we  have  lost 
confidence  in  the  utility  of  the  word  "society,"  that  has  given 
sociologists  so  much  trouble.  ,'  The  term  has  such  persistent 
structural  —  i.  e.,  statical  —  associations  that  it  starts  us  with 
false  presumptions.  The  more  we  use  the  term,  the  more  it 
seems  to  stand  for  a  fixed  species  of  some  sort  —  a  definite 
arrangement  of  quantity,  size,  and  structure.  But,  in  spite 
of  ourselves,  when  we  make  active  search  for  the  phenomena 
and  laws  of  "  society,"  we  examine  many  "  societies  "  of  dif- 
ferent forms,  structures,  sizes,  qualities ;  and  we  find  ourselves 
at  fault  when  called  upon  to  locate  the  society  />ar  excellence 
with  reference  to  which  we  posit  our  problem.J| \ 

We  speak  of  the  family  as  society,  and  again  we  refer  to 
the  human  race  as  society.  Every  intermediate  group  of 
people  may  also  be  denoted  by  the  same  term.    Thus  the  very 

*  Perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  sample  of  illusion  in  this  connection  is 
Tarde^s  abstraction  "  society."  It  proves  to  be  "  those  relationships  between 
men  which  are  made  up  of  imitation."  We  shall  return  to  the  subject  in 
Part  VII. 

183 


/ 


i84  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

word  by  which  we  attempt  to  determine  our  problem  becomes 
an  ignis  fatiius.  It  flies  so  uncontrollably  from  one  aspect  of 
humanity  to  another ;  we  not  only  waver  in  our  faith  that  the 
problem  may  be  solved,  but,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  we  some- 
times wonder  whether,  after  all,  a  real  problem  exists.  Is  not 
this  *' society"  a  veritable  will-o'-the-wisp?  Is  it  not  a  fabric 
of  the  imagination?  Is  it  not  whatever  we  please  to  make  it, 
instead  of  something  actual  and  tangible? 
/  Questions  of  this  sort  have  led  to  the  perception  that 
/human  experience  is  the  real  mystery  which  we  are  trying  to 
solve.  We  have  seen,  further,  that  human  experience  is  not 
a  thing,  nor  a  species  of  things.  It  is  relationships  between 
persons  and  the  world  they  occupy.  It  is  activities  that  have 
connections  of  cause  and  effect  with  each  other.  It  is  pro- 
cesses linked  together  into  compound,  and  doubly  compound, 
and  nthly  compound  processes.  In  short,  if  we  make  human 
beings  the  center  of  our  inquiry,  and  refer  to  the  rest  of  the 
universe  merely  in  so  far  as  it  conditions  the  activities  of 
human  beings,  we  find  that  the  mystery  reduces  itself  to  the 
process  of  human  association  from  its  minutest  to  its  largest 
phenomena,^ 

This  shifting  of  attention  from  "society"  to  "human 
association  "  is  not  a  mere  verbal  change.  It  marks  real  prog- 
ress in  discovery. 

In  the  first  place,  it  repudiates  an  a  priori  element  that 
clung  to  the  concept  "  society."  That  term  connoted  arbitrary 
extensions,  or  limitations,  or  qualifications,  which  continually 
seduced  sociologists  into  profitless  dialectics.  It  begged  ques- 
tions—  such,  for  instance,  as  the  extension  of  human  relation- 
ships, the  kind  and  degree  of  human  unity.^ 

In  the  second  place,  this  transfer  of  attention  from 
"society"  to  "human  association"  throws  down  the  artificial 
barriers  between  investigators  of  different  phases  of  human 
experience.  If  there  is  unity  of  any  sort  between  men  and 
events,  the  probability  is  that,  whenever  we  begin  to  investi- 

'  Chap.  I,  ct  passim.  'Chap.  34. 


THE  PROBLEM  RESTATED  185 

gate  the  processes  of  association,  we  shall  sooner  or  later  come 
upon  whatever  likeness  there  is  to  other  processes  of  associa- 
tion, and  whatever  nexus  there  is  between  one  process  and 
another.  At  the  same  time,  we  are  freed  from  all  assumptions 
that  bind  us  to  theories  of  likeness  or  other  relation,  if  it  does 
not  exist. 

In  the  third  pl^ce,  although  we  may  not  presume  that  this 
step  carries  us  beyond  liability  to  error  in  explaining  human 
experience,  it  certainly  marks  a  departure  from  analogical 
methods  of  dealing  with  our  subject-matter,  and  by  so  much 
an  approach  to  scientific  precision.  For  instance,  we  may  have 
been  perfectly  aware  of  the  provisional  character  of  the  theo- 
rem, "  Society  is  an  organism."  We  may  have  used  it  with 
decent  mental  reservations.  Yet  so  long  as  that  formulation 
of  the  matter  to  be  explained  controlled  our  view  of  the  task 
involved,  we  were  at  a  disadvantage.  It  is  like  clearing  the 
decks  for  action  to  advance  beyond  use  of  that  pedagogical, 
symbolic  theorem,  and  to  propose  the  analytic  questions : 
What  and  how  and  why  are  the  real  processes  that  occur  when 
two  or  more  people  associate?  The  answers  to  these  questions 
will  include  all  that  we  can  ever  scientifically  ascertain  about 
the  meaning  of  human  experience. 

Attempts  to  interpret  human  experience  in  terms  of  the 
structure  and  functions  of  society  have,  still  further,  forced 
us  to  take  human  individuals  literally.  We  have  had  to  aban- 
don, one  after  another,  fantastical  interpretations  of  society, 
in  which  individuals  figure  merely  as  so  much  material  in 
course  of  cosmic  evolution,  or  so  many  cogs  in  a  social 
machinery,  or  so  many  cells  in  living  social  tissue.  Individuals 
are  not  to  be  disposed  of  in  either  of  these  summary  fashions. 
The  philosophical  concept  "  individual "  may  baffle  us  forever.^ 
Since  the  individual  encountered  in  experience  is  the  ultimate 
term  in  the  associational  process,  sociologists  and  psycholo- 
gists have  been  compelled  to  make  common  cause  with  each 
other  in  determining  his  meaning  traits.     Of  what  sort  is  this 

*  See  chap.  32  ;   and  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual. 


i86  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

individual,  by  whom  the  social  process  is  made,  who  never- 
theless could  not  exist  except  as  a  consequence  of  the  social 
process  ? 

Without  pretending  to  speak  with  scientific  accuracy,  in 
plain  words  our  task  in  explaining  human  experience  is  to 
understand  the  ways  in  which  everyday  people  act  under  the 
different  circumstances  in  which  their  lot  js  cast.  We  know 
that  plain  people  feel  wants.  They  act  in  hope  of  satisfying 
their  wants.  We  easily  find  that  all  the  wants  which  plain 
people  have  ever  betrayed  make  up  demands  for  satisfaction 
which  may  be  put  together  in  a  very  few  groups.  The 
decisive  element  in  the  wants  in  each  of  these  groups  may  be 
discovered  without  much  trouble.  Starting  with  the  clue  that 
plain  people,  judged  by  what  they  want  and  the  means  at  their 
disposal  for  getting  it,  are  essentially  the  same,  whether  they 
live  in  primitive  caves  or  in  modern  palaces,  and  that  the 
world  around  them  is  constant  in  essence,  however  varied  in 
circumstance,  we  find  that  our  task  is  to  discover,  in  every 
phase  of  association  which  we  try  to  explain,  on  the  one  hand 
the  specific  type  of  the  constant  genus  homo  concerned  as  active 
agent,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  specific  variations  in  his 
surroundings  which  both  limit  and  stimulate  his  wants.  Other- 
wise expressed,  human  experience  is  always  a  mesh  in  a  web 
of  causes  and  effects,  in  which  persons,  in  the  elements  of  their 
nature  changeless,  in  the  manifestations  of  their  character 
infinitely  variable,  mingle  with  each  other  in  the  exercise  of 
their  qualities.  In  this  association  they  encounter  constant 
variations  of  circumstances,  both  in  each  other's  attitude  and 
in  physical  surroundings.  At  the  same  time,  all  experience 
reacts  upon  the  development  and  assortment  of  the  rudimen- 
tary factors  combined  in  the  individuals.  The  infinitely 
diverse  phenomena  of  human  association  are  thus  particular 
situations  presenting  peculiar  variations  and  combinations  of 
the  same  fundamental  elements ;  viz. :  the  physical  universe ; 
human  wants;    combinations  of  these  wants  in  individuals ;° 

"  The  reason  for  speaking  of  wants  before  we  name  individuals  is  indicated 
below,  chaps.  31   and  32. 


THE  PROBLEM  RESTATED  187 

contacts  between  individuals,  each  pursuing  purposes  given  by 
his  wants ;  conflicts  or  correspondences  of  the  purposes  of  the 
associated  individuals;  adjustments  of  the  individuals  to  each 
other  in  accommodation  of  their  purposes;  consequent  union 
of  effort  producing  new  situations,  which  in  turn  become  con- 
ditions for  another  cycle  of  the  same  series,  each  term  having 
a  content  somewhat  varied  from  that  in  the  previous  cycle, 
the  process  continuing  beyond  any  assignable  limit. 

For  example,  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt  wanted  generically 
the  same  "  life,  liberty,  and  pursuit  of  happiness"  for  which 
the  signers  of  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence  were 
ready  to  fight.  Their  specific  want  was  escape  from  their 
Egyptian  task-masters.  No  sooner  was  this  accomplished 
than  the  wanderers  in  the  wilderness  were  different  people 
from  the  slaves  in  Egypt.  In  different  surroundings,  their 
economic,  social,  pohtical,  and  religious  wants  underwent 
change,  and  their  activities  manifested  new  phenomena. 
Again,  when  they  ceased  to  be  nomads  and  established  per- 
manent settlements,  another  similar  cycle  began;  Each  gen- 
eration in  a  way  accomplishes  some  portion  of  such  a  cycle 
of  social  cause  and  effect.  Some  of  the  elements  of  the  process 
begun  by  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt  worked  through  the  whole 
process  of  the  Christian  centuries,  and  entered  into  the  motives 
of  the  American  colonists,  to  make  their  action  so  different 
in  detail  from  that  of  the  insurgent  Semites.  The  same  process 
has  made  the  Americans  of  today,  in  pursuit  of  "  life,  liberty, 
and  happiness,"  seek  the  merit  system  in  the  civil  service,  and 
electoral  reform,  and  combinations  of  labor  and  capital,  and  a 
limitless  program  of  universal  education. 

All  of  these  facts  have  had  an  influence  upon  social  theo- 
rists. They  also  necessarily  feel  somewhat  modified  demands 
for  explanation  of  the  facts  which  put  on  aspects  not  visible 
to  earlier  theorists.  Accordingly,  the  problem  that  presents 
itself  to  sociologists  today  cannot  be  expressed  in  terms  that 
sufficed  a  generation  ago.  Our  present  demand  is  for  a  way 
of  explaining  what  is  taking  place  among  people,  with  literal 


i88  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

values  for  the  different  terms  which  we  find  concerned  in 
human  experience.  We  want  an  explanation,  not  of  men's 
crystalline  formations,  not  of  their  machineries,  not  of  their 
institutional  remains.  We  want  an  account  of  the  intimate 
process  of  their  lives,  in  terms  that  will  assign  their  actual 
meaning  and  value  to  the  chief  and  subordinate  factors  con- 
cerned in  the  process.  We  want  especially  an  explanation 
that  will  guarantee  its  proportional  place  to  the  factor  human 
purposes.  We  want  to  know  all  that  can  be  discovered,  from 
the  most  particular  to  the  most  general,  about  the  laws  of  rela- 
tionship between  the  physical  surroundings,  individual  endow- 
ments, social  environments,  specific  purposes,  interrelations  of 
purposes,  collective  achievement,  and  the  reaction  of  achieve- 
ment on  the  conditions  of  subsequent  cycles  of  effort  and 
result.  No  larger  contribution  to  explanation  in  this  spirit  has 
been  made  than  that  of  Ratzenhofer.^ 

*  Wescn  und  Zweck  der  Politik  (3  vols.,  1893)  ;   Die  sociologische  Erkennt- 
niss  (1898). 


CHAPTER  XIII 

RATZENHOFER'S  EPITOME  OF  HIS  THEORY' 

The  social  process  of  men  exhibits  (a)  forces  operating 
throughout  its  extent,  (b)  regular  procedures,  and  (c)  inner 
necessities;  all  of  which  are  to  be  regarded  as  manifestations 
of  conformity  to  law  in  the  sociological  realm.     Thus  : 

1.  The  sustcntation  and  the  multiplication  of  human  beings 
are  the  occasions  of  all  social  contacts.  Their  influence  creates 
the  impetus  to  the  peaceful  relationships  and  to  the  hostile 
interruptions  which  social  structure  may  encounter.  In  social 
reaction  they  manifest  themselves  as  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  (rivalry  for  food  —  Brotneid)  and  the  sexual 
instinct  (hence  the  blood-bond  —  Bltitliebe).  All  possible 
motors  of  social  contact  are  modifications  or  evolutionary 
forms  of  these  natural  impulses,  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
the  various  forms  of  the  interests  that  control  the  individual 
are  modalities,  or  evolutionary  qualities,  of  the  inborn  interest. 

2.  In  every  creature  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  and 
the  sexual  impulse  are  in  juxtaposition  with  the  life-conditions, 
to  which  species  and  individual  must  adapt  themselves,  and 
which  they  strive  to  exploit  in  accordance  with  their  inborn 
capability.  Man  and  his  communities  are  accordingly  per- 
fected products  of  that  primal  force  which  works  in  the  endow- 
ment of  their  order  in  the  evolutionary  series,  and  of  those 
life-conditions  which  are  changing  in  the  course  of  terrestrial 
development. 

3.  Every  creature  has  originally  the  disposition  to  fulfil 
without  hindrance  his  primal  impulses.  It  would  eat  without 
labor  and  without  struggle,  and  it  would  reproduce  itself  with- 
out limits.  This  impulse  leads  men  to  spread  over  the  earth's 
surface,  in  order  to  be  unhindered  in  finding  food  and  abode. 

'  Die  sociologische  Erkenntniss,  sec.  22. 

189 


igo  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

This  impulse  is  indirectly  the  occasion  for  the  variations  of 
men  and  of  their  social  structures,  because  it  compels  them 
either  to  exchange  or  to  modify  their  life-conditions. 

4.  The  limitations  upon  exchange  of  life-conditions  which 
are  introduced  by  increase  of  population  force  upon  individuals 
and  upon  social  structures  the  struggle  for  existence.  It  com- 
pels men  to  decide  whether  they  will  at  last  labor  for  their 
subsistence,  and  by  social  organization,  in  spite  of  increased 
numbers,  accommodate  themselves  to  their  abodes  —  which 
amounts  to  the  beginning  of  culture;  or  whether,  to  the  same 
end,  they  will  destroy  or  subjugate  other  men,  the  latter  alter- 
native leading  to  forcible  struggle  and  to  organized  com- 
pulsion. 

Whether  communities  decide  upon  the  former  or  the  latter 
course  is  determined  radically  by  the  conditions  of  life  among 
which  they  develop ;  for  only  those  people  decide  primarily  in 
favor  of  culture  who  are  in  tolerable  life-conditions.  Only 
those  decide  for  war  whose  life-conditions  are  inadequate. 

5.  Although  man,  like  all  other  creatures,  would  prefer 
to  feed  and  propagate  at  peace  with  his  kind,  yet  progressive 
increase  of  numbers  and  the  need  of  sustenance  develop  his 
individual  interest  into  absolute  hostility  toward  all  fellow- 
men.  In  so  far  as  men  constitute  a  community  of  interests 
through  the  blood-bond,  or  co-operation  in  labor  or  war,  this 
hostility  is  silent ;  only  to  break  out,  however,  at  every 
disturbance  of  the  community  of  interest.  This  outbreak  will 
disregard  community  of  origin  and  all  previous  relatk">nships. 
Absolute  hostility  is  the  psychical  guardian  over  the  continu- 
ance of  a  community  of  interests. 

6.  The  origin  of  all  social  interrelations  is  the  blood-hand. 
Hence  all  primitive  social  structures  are  based  on  community 
of  origin.  Through  increase  of  numbers  and  the  quest  for 
food,  the  primitive  social  structure  is  forced  into  spatial  differ- 
entiations; which  further  leads,  through  the  various  life- 
conditions,  to  race-differentiation.  Contacts  between  differ- 
entiated men  lead  to  flight  or  to  battle.     The  latter  has  for  its 


RATZENHOFER'S  EPITOME  OF  HIS  THEORY  191 

purpose  the  destruction  of  opponents,  in  order  to  get  control 
of  their  food-supply  and  their  abodes,  or  the  conversion  of 
them  into  servants.  The  last  is  a  social  compromise  between 
destruction  and  culture.  Hence  it  leads  to  a  higher  step  in  the 
social  process,  in  which  the  social  structure  no  longer  rests 
principally  upon  blood-relationship,  but  upon  culture  and  a 
system  of  control. 

7.  The  social  structures  of  like  origin  are  always  simple. 
Subjugation  by  rulers  is  the  beginning  of  social  articulation, 
and  of  the  State. 

Since  sustentation  and  multiplication  lead  to  continual 
expansion,  and  thence  to  subjugation  of  some  people  by  others; 
since  the  conditions  of  life  tend  to  become  progressively  more 
complex  in  their  effects;  and  since  culture  enriches  without 
limit  the  forms  of  human  requirements,  there  begins,  with 
this  first  articulation,  an  incalculable  differentiation  of  social 
structures.  Culture  promotes  commerce,  which  in  itself  has 
a  dissolving  influence  upon  the  restraints  of  the  unified  social 
structure,  of  origin,  common  culture,  or  common  control 
(State).  Hence  commerce  tends  to  spread  differentiation 
without  limit  over  all  social  structures.  The  differentiation 
and  the  blending  of  social  structures  is  the  practical  content 
of  the  social  process.  It  is  the  social  effect  of  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  the  social  means  of  paralyzing  absolute  hos- 
tility. In  this  social  process  of  differentiation  and  of  blending, 
the  controlling  influence  of  the  primal  force,  with  its  apper- 
taining interest,  asserts  itself  in  the  social  realm. 

8.  The  social  process  is  a  continuous  rhythm  of  the  indi- 
vidualization  of  structures  arising  anew  out  of  others  already 
in  existence  —  i.  e.,  the  reappearance  in  the  social  realm  of  the 
biological  phenomena  of  the  propagation  of  organisms;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  the  socialization  of  social  structures 
already  existing — i.  e.,  the  reappearance  in  the  social  realm 
of  the  physiological  phenomenon  of  the  somatic  upbuilding  of 
organisms.  Social  differentiation  is  as  limitless  as  the  increase 
of  organisms.     Both  individualization  and  socialization  have 


192  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

their  roots  in  the  inborn  interest  of  the  individual ;  or,  in  turn, 
in  the  concrete  interest  of  each  social  structure.  Differentia- 
tion is  stimulated  by  variation  of  interests.  This  variation  of 
interests,  however,  is  the  consequence  of  the  increase  of  num- 
bers, and  of  the  quest  for  food,  under  the  influence  of  different 
life-conditions.  In  the  individualizing  side  of  the  process, 
variation  asserts  itself.  In  the  socializing  side,  the  evolution 
of  the  social  structure  is  foremost. 

9.  Differentiation  (or  impulse  to  individualism)  has  its 
boundaries  in  the  number  of  individuals;  i.  e.,  differentiation 
can  go  on  up  to  the  atomization  of  society,  because  each  indi- 
vidual may  regard  his  own  interest  as  the  content  of  a  social 
structure.  Socialization  (or  impulse  to  form  communities)  is 
bounded  only  by  "humanity;"  i.  e.,  "humanity"  may  become 
a  social  structure,  if  throughout  that  most  inclusive  range  a 
unifying  interest  comes  to  be  felt  as  a  need.  The  practical 
boundaries  of  differentiation  are,  however,  those  interests 
which  arise  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  from  the  require- 
ments of  men  in  connection  with  the  life-conditions.  The 
practical  boundary  of  socialization  is  the  extent  of  copartner- 
ship which  these  interests  find  to  be  feasible. 

10.  Differentiation,  consequently,  frees  men  from  irksome 
social  restraints,  so  that  they  may  live  for  those  interests  which 
are  inborn,  or  to  which  they  have  become  devoted  through 
social  influence.  Differentiation,  accordingly,  fluctuates  along 
the  line  of  social  necessity,  between  variations  of  the  indi- 
vidual will. 

Socialization,  on  the  other  hand,  confines  men  in  restraints, 
in  order  to  reach  the  needed  sup[)ort  and  co-operation  for  ful- 
filling and  securing  their  natural  or  supposed  interest;  or  in 
restraints  which  the  force  of  social  conditions  imposes  upon 
them.  Socialization  vibrates  along  the  line  of  social  neces- 
sity, between  voluntary  submission  for  the  sake  of  a  social 
interest,  and  forcible  subjugation  under  an  alien  interest. 

11.  For  differentiation,  as  well  as  for  socialization,  social 
necessity  is  either  the  interest  involved  and   implicit   in   the 


RATZENHOFER'S  EPITOME  OF  HIS  THEORY  193 

immanent  capabilities  of  men,  or  that  which  is  prescribed  by 
the  life-conditions  and  determined  by  the  social  situation. 
Subjective  motive  and  external  compulsion  may  temporarily 
veto  the  social  necessity,  but  in  the  result  of  general  evolution 
it  nevertheless  arrives  at  unlimited  realization. 

12.  The  more  men  spread  over  the  available  places  of 
abode  (life-conditions)  in  consequence  of  increase  of  numbers 
—  i.  e.,  the  more  occasions  for  social  variation  enter  —  the 
more  variations  of  individual  choice  (departures  from  social 
necessity)  will  occur  in  the  social  process,  so  that  socializing 
constraint  (subjugation)  is  necessary  in  order  to  bring  social 
necessity  to  its  proper  influence.  Every  subjugation  deter- 
mines a  relation  of  control.  The  social  type  of  this  reciprocal 
relationship  is  the  State. 

But  because  the  individual  will  degenerates,  the  socializing 
constraint  degenerates  also,  and  it  produces  systems  of  con- 
trol which  are  contrary  to  social  necessity;  i.  e.,  States  which 
do  not  fulfil  their  task  of  procuring  social  order.  Then  differ- 
entiation, supported  by  public  intercourse  and  the  aggrieved 
interests  in  the  State,  interposes,  and  dismembers,  reforms,  or 
destroys  the  State,  until  the  demands  of  social  necessity  are 
satisfied. 

13.  The  species  of  control  in  the  State  depends  upon  the 
evolutionary  stage  of  the  social  process.  The  transition  from 
the  simple  to  the  complex  social  structure,  the  progress  from 
the  destruction  of  all  alien  social  structures  to  varying  blend- 
ing of  them,  is  marked  by  the  State  in  which  conquerors  rule. 
The  predominance  of  peaceful  interests,  on  the  basis  of  a  com- 
munity character  assured  by  conquest,  opens  the  culture-State. 
This  State  attempts  to  bring  the  necessity  of  control  over  the 
subjugated  into  harmony  with  creative  culture- freedom. 

14.  Struggle  and  war,  in  general  social  disturbances,  con- 
solidate social  structures.  They  are,  consequently,  sources  of 
political  power.  Culture  and  commerce  weaken  the  social 
bond.    They  are,  consequently,  sources  of  social  differentiation 


194  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

and  of  political  dismemberment;    but  at  the  same  time  they 
occasion  extension  of  the  social  relationship. 

15.  Just  as  variation  leads  to  relative  perfection  and  com- 
plexity of  organisms,  so  social  differentiation  produces  a  more 
highly  developed  and  complicated  combination  of  social  struc- 
tures in  superordination,  co-ordination,  and  subordination. 
Through  their  interests  and  life-conditions  these  structures 
are  in  reciprocal  dependence,  which  extends  as  far  as  societary 
contacts  are  possible  between  them.  While  social  structures 
originally  occupied  a  kind  of  isolated  position  within  their 
environment,  contacts  between  them  became  later  more  fre- 
quent, until  at  last  men  are  surrounded  by  a  web  of  social  rela- 
tionships, which  may  sometime  make  "humanity"  take  on  the 
appearance  of  a  social  structure.  Propagation,  sustentation, 
and  exploitation  are  the  causes;  war,  culture,  and  commerce, 
the  means;  harmonious  satisfaction  of  interests,  the  end  of 
this  social  development. 

16.  While  the  web  of  social  relationships  grows  closer, 
violent  disturbances  of  social  conditions  diminish,  because 
every  disturbance  in  the  complex  framework  of  the  recipro- 
cally dependent  social  structure  is  felt  on  many  sides,  and 
presently  on  all  sides,  as  opposed  to  interest.  Just  as  in  the 
case  of  sparse  population  the  dominant  power  orders  social 
affairs  in  the  politically  independent  social  structure  by  means 
of  force,  so  in  case  of  denser  population  the  dominant  power 
will  maintain  order  in  social  affairs  through  compromise  of 
the  opposing  interests.  The  culture-State  comes  into  the  fore- 
ground in  consequence  of  the  greater  density  of  the  society, 
and,  by  the  side  of  violent  subjugation,  industrial  exploitation 
by  means  of  capital  gains  influence.  What  sort  of  controlling 
system  follows  this  mixture  of  political  and  industrial  control 
is  not  yet  disclosed  by  the  social  process. 

17.  That  absolute  hostility  imbedded  in  the  nature  of  indi- 
viduality, which  at  first  did  not  come  to  expression  on  account 
of  the  al)sence  of  social  contacts  (with  the  exception  of  those 
consecjuent  upon  blood-relationship),  which,  however,  became 


RATZENHOFER'S  EPITOME  OF  HIS  THEORY  195 

dominant  during  the  extension  of  the  social  process  through- 
out mankind,  is  suppressed  again  by  universal  socialization. 
Deficiency  of  social  contacts  in  the  original  condition  of  man- 
kind, and  the  difficulty  of  social  disturbances  if  culture  is  gen- 
eral, have  here  the  same  result.  Absolute  hostility  breaks  out 
again,  however,  when  unlike  social  structures  with  like  inter- 
ests encounter  each  other  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  if  no 
superior  power  controls  them,  or  if  no  interdependence  of 
interest  brings  them  to  agreement. 

18.  In  the  degree  in  which  the  culture-State  takes  the  place 
of  the  conquest-State,  the  differences  among  men  in  the  satis- 
faction of  interests  equalize  themselves.  Political,  social,  and 
industrial  inequality  among  men  transform  themselves  again 
into  such  equality  in  participation  of  enjoyment  as  prevailed 
in  primitive  social  conditions.  General  socialization  of  men 
complicates  the  social  structure,  to  be  sure.  It  tends,  how- 
ever, to  produce  concord  of  interests  through  increasing  per- 
fection of  the  social  organization;  nevertheless,  with  existing 
varieties  of  life-conditions  it  cannot  remove  all  occasions  for 
social  conflict. 

Social  order  is  an  organizing  of  the  struggle  for  existence, 
for  the  purpose  of  assuring  sustenance  and  the  propagation 
of  wholesome  generations.  It  is,  accordingly,  justifiable  to 
assume,  as  the  conclusion  of  social  development,  a  condition 
in  which,  in  spite  of  manifoldness  of  individualities  in  adapta- 
tion to  their  occupations,  there  will  ensue  a  cultural,  political, 
and  social  equality  of  men  under  the  leadership  of  individuals 
who  are  intellectually  and  morally  the  most  perfect.  Under 
a  system  of  control  by  ethical  and  intellectual  authority,  social 
development  without  degeneration  of  inborn  and  acquired 
interests  might  be  possible;  but  the  equality  must  remain  for 
an  incalculable  period  modified  by  inequality  and  by  changes 
of  life-conditions. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS 

In  the  beginning  were  interests. 

We  are  now  using  the  word  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it 
is  famihar  in  business  and  in  politics.  Nothing  would  be 
gained  by  greater  exactness  of  terms  at  present.  We  shall 
have  to  provide  for  closer  analysis  later.^  Both  something  in 
men  that  makes  them  have  wants,  and  something  outside  of 
men  that  promises  to  gratify  the  wants,  is  implied  by  the  word 
"interest."  We  need  not  now  enter  into  these  details,  but  may 
frankly  speak  as  we  do  when  we  refer  to  the  farming  inter- 
ests, or  the  banking  interests,  or  the  labor  interests,  or  the 
interests  of  the  "machine." 

The  primary  interest  of  every  man,  as  of  every  animal,  is 
in  sheer  keeping  alive.  Nobody  knows  how  many  ages  men 
consumed  in  getting  aware  of  any  other  interest.  This  pri- 
mary animal  interest  can  never  be  outgrown,  although  it  is 
doubtful  if  we  ever  observe  it  alone  in  normal  human  beings. 
In  nearly  all  men  who  have  left  traces  of  their  mode  of  life, 
we  find  indications,  faint  perhaps,  that  the  radical  interest  is 
in  partnership  with  a  few  generically  unlike  interests.  Among 
more  highly  developed  men  the  latter  display  innumerable 
specific  variations,  and  enter  into  countless  combinations. 

For  example,  a  universal  form  of  the  primary  interest  is 
the  food-interest.  Men  must  eat  to  live.  This  is  true  no 
more  and  no  less  of  the  primitive  savage  than  of  the  poet 
laureate.  It  is  true  no  more  and  no  less  of  men  who  eat 
roots  or  uncooked  flesh,  than  of  the  men  who  make  up  their 
bill-of-fare  according  to  the  gastronomic  standards  of  any 
capital,  from  Pekin  to  London.  It  is  true  no  more  and  no  less 
of  the  men  whose  food  is  so  precarious  that  they  first  eat  their 

'  Vide  chaps.   15  and  31. 

196 


ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  197 

vanquished  enemies  before  exploiting  their  lands,  than  of  the 
men  who  start  bread  riots  in  the  streets  of  Milan,  or  who  call 
a  strike  in  New  York,  or  who  plan  over  a  banquet  table  to 
suppress  a  strike  in  Chicago.  The  interest  is  at  lx)ttom,  and 
in  social  effects,  in  principle  one.  In  variations,  and  in  ratio  of 
social  effects,  it  is  infinitely  variable  and  dependent  upon 
countless  shadings  of  circumstance. 

Again,  the  food-interest  is  merely  foremost  in  a  group  of 
interests  that  are  in  the  most  intimate  sense  peculiar  to  the 
body,  the  animal  part  of  men.  They  are  all  the  interests  that 
seek  their  satisfaction  in  the  activities  and  enjoyments  of  the 
body.  In  this  group  the  sex-interest  is  usually  made  co- 
ordinate with  the  food-interest,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  there  is 
a  third  approaching  these  in  importance.  I  venture  to  call  all 
the  other  positive  types  of  bodily  interest  by  the  general  name 
the  work-interests.  Whether  this  is  a  good  designation  or 
not,  I  mean  by  it  all  the  impulses  to  physical  activity  for  its 
own  sake.  I  mean  the  impulses  to  physical  prowess  and  skill, 
that  vary  from  the  pranks  of  childhood  to  the  systematized 
trial  of  skill  among  athletes.  The  three  species  of  interest 
which  I  call  food,  sex,  and  work  make  up  one  genus  of  human 
interests,  to  which  I  give  the  name  the  health-interest.  By 
this  phrase  I  mean  all  the  human  desires  that  have  their  center 
in  exercise  and  enjoyment  of  the  powers  of  the  body. 

So  far  as  I  am  able  to  account  for  the  activities  of  men, 
they  all  run  back  to  motives  that  have  their  roots  in  com- 
binations of  this  health-interest  with  interests  that  arrange 
themselves  in  five  other  groups.  Men  have  a  distinct  interest 
in  controlling  the  resources  of  nature,  in  asserting  their  indi- 
viduality among  their  fellows,  in  mastering  all  that  can  be 
known,  in  contemplating  what  seems  to  them  beautiful,  and 
in  realizing  what  seems  to  them  right.  I  have  not  been  able 
to  find  any  human  act  which  requires,  for  explanation,  any 
motive  that  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  specialization  and  com- 
bination of  these  interests.  Each  of  the  groups  has  subdi- 
visions, more  or  fewer  than  those  of  the  first.     All  men,  how- 


kc 


198  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

ever,  from  the  most  savage  to  the  most  highly  civiHzed,  act 
as  they  do  act,  first,  because  of  variations  in  the  circumstances 
of  their  environment,  both  physical  and  social ;  second,  because 
of  variations  and  permutations  of  their  six  elementary  inter- 
ests.   I  name  these,  for  convenience,  health,  wealth,  socia- 

-^  BILITY,    KNOWLEDGE,    BEAUTY,    and    RIGHTNESS.^ 

Of  course,  this  analysis  of  human  interests  is  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  observer,  not  of  the  actor.  Real  human 
beings  are  not  such  prigs  as  to  start  by  saying:  "  Go  to  now. 
I  propose  to  secure  health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge, 
beauty,  and  rightness."  It  is  only  the  rare  individual,  even 
in  relatively  advanced  society,  whose  powers  of  abstraction 
are  so  developed  that  he  can  say:  "  I  want  food."  Most  men 
know  simply  that  they  are  hungry  and  want  the  particular 
food  that  will  satisfy  present  cravings;  or  they  want  work, 
because  its  wage  will  buy  today's  dinner.  Still  less  do  men, 
as  a  rule,  define  the  other  groups  of  interests,  but  all  men  act 
for  reasons  which  the  few  reflective  men  may  trace  back  to 
combinations  of  motives  conveniently  classified  in  our  six 
groups.  The  precise  type  and  balance  of  motive  is  a  distinct 
problem  in  each  social  situation. 

In  all  literal  description  of  the  social  process,  therefore, 
the  key  must  be  found  in  the  purposes,  general  and  special, 
that  call  out  the  efforts  of  the  people  concerned.  All  their 
social  structures  are  to  be  understood  as  aids  or  hindrances 
to  those  purposes.  All  the  social  functions,  acting  or  lacking, 
have  a  meaning  that  depends  upon  their  help  or  hindrance  to 
achievement  of  these  purposes.  Each  incident  in  social  experi- 
ence must  be  construed  in  its  relations  to  these  purposes.  In 
brief,  then,  the  form  in  zvhich  zve  must  try  to  think  all  social 
experience  is  this:  individuals  in  large  numbers,  each  repre- 
senting such  and  such  combinations  of  speciHc  interests,  and 
Zi'orking  by  means  of,  or  in  spite  of.  such  and  such  social 
structures,  in  and  through,  or  in  spite  of,  such  and  such  opera- 

'  Professor  Ross  pronounces  this  classification  untenable  {American  Journal 
of  Sociology,  Vol.  IX,  p.  537;    and  Foundations  of  Sociology,  p.  165). 


ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  199 

HoHS  of  social  function,  directing  their  efforts  toward  such  and 
such  immediate  aims,  resulting  in  such  and  such  episodes, 
incidental  to  conscious  or  unconscious  endeavor  of  such  and 
such  nature,  to  achieve  such  and  such  ultimate  purposes.  A 
science  of  the  zvhole  social  process  is  possible  simply  to  the 
degree  in  ivhich  ive  become  able  to  give  a  definite  value  to  each 
of  those  indefinite  terms,  through  long  series  of  social  experi- 
ences.^ 

Expressed  in  an  illustration :  To  know  that  phase  of  the 
social  process  which  was  displayed  in  England  during  the 
period  of  Roundhead  and  Cavalier,  we  must  first  know  the 
personal  make-up  of  all  the  different  types  of  Englishmen 
whose  force  counted  at  all  in  the  social  situation.  We  must 
know  how  they  were  grouped,  and  how  much  force  each  kind 
of  group  was  able  to  bring  to  bear  upon  the  situation.  We 
must  know  the  framework  of  the  institutions  —  domestic, 
economic,  political,  legal,  ecclesiastical,  and  social  —  which 
constituted  at  once  their  means  of  expressing  themselves  and 
limitations  upon  their  self-expression.  We  must  know  how 
the  different  groups  of  effective  Englishmen  regarded  the  actual 
working  of  these  institutions ;  whether,  and  in  what  ratio,  they 
classed  them  as  channels  of  their  will,  or  as  obstructions  of 
their  wishes.  We  must  know  what  specific  social  efforts  were 
undertaken,  and  how  they  clashed  or  combined  with  each 
other ;  and  we  must  know  the  larger  purposes  that  defined  the 
general  aims.  We  must  know  how  the  elements  of  the  situa- 
tion at  the  end  of  the  period  compared  with  their  character 
at  the  beginning  —  viz.,  the  personal  make-up  of  the  English- 
men of  the  later  time,  their  rearrangements,  the  changes 
wrought  in  the  structure  and  functions  of  their  institutions, 
their  specific  aims,  and  the  main  purpose  that  gave  general 
tone  and  direction  to  their  action. 

In  so  far  as  we  can  know  these  things  of  any  historic 
period,  we  know  the  social  process  as  it  worked  itself  out  in 
that  period.     In  so  far  as  we  can  know  these  things  of  many 

^  Cf.  chap.  39. 


200  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

historic  periods,  among  many  peoples,  we  have  the  means  of 
generalizing  laws  of  the  social  process.  In  so  far  as  we  can 
combine  such  knowledge  of  the  past  with  similar  knowledge 
of  the  period  in  which  we  are  living,  we  have  all  the  scientific 
equipment  available  for  intelligent  participation  in  promoting 
the  social  process.^ 

In  the  foregoing  paragraphs  I  have  not  intentionally  left 
anything  unsaid  which  might  disabuse  any  mind  of  the  impres- 
sion that  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  social  process.  It  is  by 
far  the  most  difficult  problem  in  the  field  of  positive  knowl- 
edge. My  claim  as  to  possible  results  is  simply  this :  For 
the  present  the  best  that  any  man  can  accomplish,  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances,  through  study  of  the  social 
process  at  large,  will  be  merely  a  little  better  balancing  of  his 
mind  for  social  judgments  than  would  have  been  possible  in  his 
case  without  the  study.  Whoever  knows  enough  about  the 
social  process  to  appreciate  the  difference  for  social  weal  or 
woe  between  the  effects  of  wise  and  unwise  action,  even  by  an 
individual,  will  hardly  doubt  that  merely  the  meager  amount 
of  result  fairly  to  be  expected  from  diligent  study  of  the  social 
process  is  worth  more  than  it  costs. 

*  The  above  specifications  in  terms  of  purpose  are  in  sufficiently  distinct 
contrast  with  Spencer's  schedule;    above,  p.  109. 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE   NATURE  OF  THE   SOCIAL   PROCESS 

We  have  spoken  of  "  interests  "  as  "  elements  of  the  social 
process."  In  order  to  see  haw  they  take  on  that  character, 
it  is  necessary  to  analyze  interests  a  little  more  carefully  from 
another  point  of  view. 

What  we  have  to  say  now  applies  to  interests,  whether  we 
use  the  term  in  the  most  general  sense,  as  when  we  said  that 
interests  may  be  reduced  to  six;  or  in  the  most  particular 
sense,  as  when  we  speak  of  an  interest  in  buying-  at  the  lowest 
price,  or  in  getting  an  invitation  to  a  social  function,  or  in 
catching  the  train,  or  in  occupying  a  good  seat  at  the  theater. 

An  interest  is  a  plain  demand  for  something,  regardless 
of  everything  else.  An  interest  is  unequivocal,  intolerant, 
exclusive.  We  may  see  this  in  the  case  of  different  interests 
in  the  same  individual.  Everybodyj  for  instance,  is  interested 
both  in  eating  and  in  resting.  One  of  the  marks  of  a  high 
state  of  civilization,  as  contrasted  with  a  lower  state,  is  per- 
sistence in  carrying  on  the  work  needed  to  assure  the  food- 
supply,  even  when  starvation  is  not  an  immediate  danger. 
The  interest  of  the  savage  in  rest  often  leaves  him  at  the  verge 
of  missing  his  last  chance  for  food.  Men  of  low  grade  will 
let  their  rest-interest  have  its  way  till  hunger  asserts  itself; 
then  the  food-interest  in  turn  banishes  rest  till  hunger  is 
appeased.  I  may  be  interested  in  talking  with  my  family,  or 
in  music,  or  in  games,  or  in  celebrating  the  Fourth  of  July. 
If,  however,  at  a  given  moment  my  main  interest  is  in  going 
to  sleep,  I  have  patience  neither  (with  talk,  nor  music,  nor 
games,  nor  celebrations.  Every  interest  tends  to  be  absolute. 
If  we  were  concerned  now  with  individuals,  as  such,  we  should 
have  to  dwell  upon  the  psychology  of  interest.  It  is  enough 
for  our  present  purposes  to  observe  that  each  individual  is  a 


202  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

resultant  of  many  interests,  which  have  been  reduced  to  a  cer- 
tain working  basis  of  mutual  concession. 

When  we  consider  individuals  in  their  relations  with  each 
other,  we  find  that  their  reactions  are  produced  by  the  interests 
that  they  severally  represent.  Each  individual  is  a  simple  or 
a  compound  interest-factor.  For  instance,  a  newly  arrived 
Slovak  sees  in  a  boss  builder  simply  and  solely  the  source  of  a 
w^age.  The  builder  sees  in  the  immigrant  simply  and  solely 
a  power  to  work.  The  one  wants  the  wage,  the  other  wants 
the  work;  and  beyond  that  the  two  neither  expect  nor  desire 
more  of  each  other.  But  presently  the  immigrant  becomes  a 
voter,  and  the  builder  becomes  a  candidate.  Now  the  voter 
wants  an  easier  wage,  and  the  candidate  wants  other  services 
besides  work.  The  two  may  be  at  heart  quite  as  self-centered 
as  before.  To  each  the  other  is  merely  a  means,  while  self  is 
for  each  the  end.  Yet  the  interests  of  the  two  have  a  different 
content,  and  as  a  result  their  reaction  upon  each  other  is  some- 
what changed,  both  in  form  and  in  method.  Each  is  still  bent 
on  making  the  other  tributary  to  his  own  interests,  and  on 
avoiding  payment  of  more  tribute  than  necessary  to  the  interest 
of  the  other. 

Stages  in  the  social  process  differ  according  to  the  degree 
in  which  the  interests  of  individuals  are  independent  or  inter- 
woven. At  one  extreme  is  the  condition  in  which  either  A's 
interest  and  B's  interest  in  food  may  be  satisfied  without 
reference  to  the  other,  and  as  they  have  no  effective  interests 
of  any  other  sort,  they  live  without  attention  to  each  other; 
or,  A's  interest  in  food  cannot  be  satisfied  if  B's  interest  in 
food  is  satisfied.  Their  interests  in  this  case  demand  either 
the  same  food  or  control  of  the  same  source  of  supply.  Under 
the  latter  circumstances,  fierce  hostility,  war  of  extermination, 
is  the  phase  of  the  social  process  inevitable  between  the  indi- 
viduals, or  between  the  tribes  whose  situation  they  typify.  At 
the  other  extreme  is  the  condition  in  whicli  neither  major  nor 
minor  interests  of  one  person  are  satisfied  in  any  considerable 
degree  except  at  the  price  of  contributing  to  satisfaction  of  the 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  203 

interests  of  others.  From  one  extreme  to  the  other,  the  social 
process  is  a  reaction  between  persons  each  attempting  to  satisfy 
his  own  interests. 

If  we  look  into  the  different  modes  of  this  reaction,  we  find 
that  they  reduce  to  two;  viz.,  conjunction  of  interests  and 
conflict  of  interests.  The  former  type  occurs  when  it  is  neces- 
sary for  the  persons  in  question  in  some  way  tO'  further  each 
other's  interests  in  order  to  promote  their  own  interests.  The 
latter  type  occurs  when  it  is  necessary  for  the  persons  in  ques- 
tion to  oppose  each  other's  interests  in  order  to  promote  their 
own.  The  members  of  a  patriarchal  family,  of  a  tribe,  of  a 
band  of  outlaws,  or  of  an  army  are  illustrations  of  the  first 
type.  Two  tribes  fighting  for  possession  of  the  same  hunting- 
grounds,  the  criminal  element  and  the  law-abiding  element  in 
a  community,  competing  schemes  for  monopoly  of  an  eco- 
nomic opportunity,  or  two  intolerant  religions,  are  illustrations 
of  the  second. 

The  social  process  could  not  occur  at  all  if  a  certain  measure 
of  the  conjunction  of  interests  did  not  exist  among  the  earliest 
specimens  of  the  human  species.  Such  community  of  interests 
as  that  between  parent  and  offspring,  children  of  the  same 
family,  members  of  the  same  clan  of  tribe,  may  contain  little 
that  is  clearly  different  from  the  community  of  interest  in  a 
pack  of  wolves.  If  the  latent  community  of  interests  among 
primitive  men  had  been  no  greater  than  that  among  other  ani- 
mals, their  descendants  would  not  have  developed  the  contrasts 
that  now  exist  between  human  individuals  and  their  societies, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  brute  individuals  and  their  societies,  on 
the  other. 

At  the  same  time,  the  conspicuous  element  in  the  history  of 
the  race,  so  far  as  it  has  been  recorded,  is  universal  conflict  of 
interests.  It  may  be  that  philosophers  will  some  day  be  able 
to  reconstruct  views  of  the  social  process,  throughout  historic 
time,  in  terms  which  will  present  implicit  consensus  of  interests 
as  the  ultimate  motor  of  the  process;  while  they  will  con- 
strue the  obvious  conflict  of  interests  as  merely  secondary  inci- 


204  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

dents  in  the  development  of  the  process.  It  would  be  mere 
dogmatism  to  pretend  that  the  facts  in  sight  at  present  justify 
such  a  rendering.  Conflict  between  men  interested  in  the 
same  thing,  which  could  not  be  controlled  by  both  contestants ; 
or  between  men  interested  in  different  and  incompatible  things, 
has  always  been  the  prominent  social  situation ;  while  con- 
ciliation and  agreement  have  been  rather  resultants  of  social 
forces  than  prime  factors  in  movement.  We  shall  see  later 
that  the  last  proposition  has  to  be  modified  when  we  observe 
the  most  advanced  stages  of  the  social  process.  It  is  approxi- 
mately correct  of  the  earlier  stages.  At  first,  conflict  is  the 
active  factor,  while  consensus  is  the  passive  factor.  The 
former  of  these  factors  is  so  constant  and,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  social  process  on  a  large  scale,  so  predominant,  that  the 
initial  forms  of  the  process  have  been  subsumed  under  the 
so-called  "law  of  absolute  hostility."'^ 

Yet  we  must  not  even  provisionally  assume  that  "  absolute 
hostility"  is  literally  absolute,  as  a  general  relation  between 
men.  There  is  absolute  hostility  between  interests,  considered 
as  pure  abstractions.  There  is  limited  hostility  between  actual 
interests,  either  in  the  same  person  or  in  different  persons. 
In  cases  of  blood-feud,  or  wars  of  extermination,  the  notion 
"absolute  hostility"  has  its  evident  application.  For  practical 
purposes  the  formula  means  that  human  relations  range 
upward  from  a  state  in  which  men  will  fight  each  other  to  the 
death.  The  very  men  who  are  destroying  each  other  in  the 
latter  case  may  be  prompted  to  that  violence  by  desire  to  pro- 
tect other  persons  from  similar  violence.  Their  "absolute 
hostility"  is  not  universal,  therefore,  but  particular.  It  is  not 
an  essential  human  ])rinciple,  but  merely  a  mode  of  social  rela- 
tionship under  peculiar  circumstances. 

"Absolute  hostility"  reduces  to  something  like  this:  So 
long  and  so  far  as  the  struggle  for  existence  develops  merely 
material  wants,  the  persons  or  groups  feeling  those  wants  are 
implacably  hostile  to  all  persons  or  groups  whose  existence 

'  Vide  Ratzcnhofer,  Wescn  und  Zivcck  dcr  Politik,  Vol.  I,  sec.  7. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  205 

threatens  the  satisfaction  of  those  wants.  As  other  wants 
develop,  and  as  means  for  securing  the  essential  wants  increase, 
the  terms  on  which  persons  are  willing  to  pursue  satisfaction 
of  their  wants  become  less  absolute.  The  social  process  con- 
tinues to  be  largely  in  the  form  of  struggle,  but  it  is  less  and 
less  inexorable  struggle. 

Without  affirming  that  either  conflict  or  conjunction  of 
interests  is  the  essence  of  the  social  process,  we  may  say  that, 
in  form,  the  social  process  is  incessant  reaction  of  persons 
prompted  by  interests  that  in  part  conflict  zvith  the  interests 
of  their  fellows,  and  in  part  comport  with  the  interests  of 
others.  The  ratio  of  the  conflict  and  of  the  harmony  is  almost 
infinitely  variable.  The  kinds  of  conflict  and  harmony  are 
likewise  variable.  In  general,  conflict  is  the  obvious  phase  of 
association  in  earlier  stages  of  the  social  process,  while  con- 
junction of  interests  grows  more  evident  in  later  stages.  Our 
analysis  of  the  social  process  will,  accordingly,  take  the  corre- 
sponding order;  viz.,  first  the  conflict  phase  of  the  process, 
second  the  co-operative  phase. 

In  thus  speaking  of  opposition  and  conjunction  in  the 
social  process,  as  though  they  were  earlier  and  later  in  order 
of  time,  we  are  doing  a  certain  necessary  violence  to  reality,  as 
has  been  indicated  above.  The  two  aspects  of  the  process  are 
not  consecutive,  but  simultaneous.  Yet  it  is  doubtful  if  they 
are  ever  equal  either  in  quantity  or  in  importance.  One  is 
always  the  main  tendency,  while  the  other  is  secondary.  Cer- 
tain interests  in  given  persons  are  always  engaged  in  social 
struggle,  while  certain  other  interests  in  the  same  persons  are 
in  co-operation  with  other,  or  possibly  the  same,  persons.  An 
obvious  illustration  is  the  conflict  between  England  and  the 
United  States  as  producers  of  steel  rails,  for  instance,  and 
the  harmony  of  the  two  nations  as  consumers  and  producers 
of  cotton.  Without  forgetting  the  interplay  of  these  two 
principal  aspects  of  the  process,  we  shall  first  observe  the 
phenomena  of  conflict,  and  later  those  of  co-operation.  Socio- 
logical analysis,  guided  by  the  process-conception  of  life,  must 


2o6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

have  gone  far  beyond  its  present  results,  before  it  can  be  per- 
tinent to  venture  generalizations  about  the  relative  importance 
of  these  factors  as  dynamic  forces. 

It  is  not  superfluous  to  repeat  that  we  do  not  reach  the 
deep  meaning  of  any  social  situation,  past  or  present,  until  we 
have  found  final  answers  to  the  questions :  What  are  the 
effective  interests  in  the  activities  observed,  and  what  is  the 
law  of  their  operation  ?  In  practice  we  shall  hardly  be  able  to 
hold  these  questions  entirely  separate  from  the  questions  which 
are  logically  subordinate :  How  do  these  factors  operate,  by 
collision  or  by  conjunction;  and  by  what  form  and j)roportion 
of  compounding  the  two  modes  ? 


"1 


CHAPTER   XVI 
THE  PRIMITIVE  SOCIAL  PROCESS 

Although  it  may  never  be  possible  to  draw  a  definite 
boundary  line  between  animal  and  human  societies,  so  that 
we  may  say  without  qualification,  "  At  this  point  the  species 
graduates  from  the  animal  class  into  the  human  class,"  we 
may  find  an  approximate  distinction.  So  long  as  biological 
interests  control,  the  process  does  not  reach  the  plane  of  the 
social.  When  choices,  as  distinct  from  physiological  cause  and 
effect,  begin  to  modify  individual  action,  the  human  plane  is 
reached.  In  so  far  as  individuals  on  that  plane  come  in  con- 
tact with  each  other,  their  reactions  initiate  the  social  process 

At  the  beginning  there  is  little  or  no  outward  difference 
between  the  more  highly  developed  forms  of  the  biological 
process  and  the  rudimentary  forms  of  the  social  process. 
Herds  of  elephants  appear  to  be  better  organized  than  some 
collections  of  men.  It  is  only  by  detecting  evidence  of  factors 
in  actions  of  men  which  cannot  be  discovered  in  elephants,  that 
we  have  the  means  of  making  out  the  more  involved  process 
which  men  maintain. 

We  have  called  the  ultihiate  moving  springs  of  human 
action  "  interests."  Among  interests  some  are  common  to 
beasts  and  to  men.  Added  to  these  basic  interests,  both  as 
variations  of  them  and  as  factors  of  generically  different 
orders,  are  other  interests  which  contain  the  promise  and 
potency  of  unlimited  differentiation  of  human  action.  These 
interests  are  mighty  forms  of  impulse.  They  presently  spur 
or  curb  the  animal  interests  to  such  purpose  that  other  ends  are 
gained  than  those  indicated  in  physiological  impulse.  They 
reach  out  after  satisfactions  either  in  the  possession  of  things, 
or  in  adjustments  between  persons,  or  in  higher  types  or 
degrees  of  individual  attainment.     These  interests  transform 

207 


2o8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

themselves  into  wants,  which  are  each  individual's  expression 
of  a  generic  interest,  and  they  manifest  themselves  in  desire 
for  something.  Experience  merely  develops  power  to  desire, 
and  modifies  the  direction  which  desires  take. 

We  have  thus  far  placed  the  emphasis  upon  the  single 
person.  We  begin  to  find  the  social  process  when  we  turn  our 
attention  to  groups  of  persons.  In  fact,  nobody  has  ever  seen 
a  person  who  is  independent  of  other  persons.  Human  life  is 
always  and  necessarily  social  life;  i.  e.,  life  in  groups,  the 
members  of  which  influence  each  other.  All  that  we  need  say, 
for  our  present  purposes,  about  contrasts  between  human 
groups  and  animal  groups,  is  that  the  members  of  the  former 
influence  each  other  in  more  ways  than  those  of  the  latter. 

From  a  very  early  stage  in  the  social  process,  if  not  abso- 
lutely from  the  beginning,  men  live  and  move  and  have  their 
being  as  members  one  of  another. 

Indeed,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  we  are  doing  violence 
to  facts  when  we  speak  as  though  individuals,  in  the  modern 
sense,  first  came  into  existence,  and  afterward  social  groups 
were  formed.  It  is  probably  nearer  the  truth  to  suppose  that 
originally  individuals  were  differentiations  of  groups,  than  to 
suppose  that  groups  were  syntheses  of  individuals.^  It 
becomes  a  problem  of  more  particular  analysis  to  make  out  the 
precise  course  of  the  rhythm  between  movements  from  group 
to  individual^  and  vice  versa.^ 

To  get  at  the  reality  of  the  social  process,  we  must  see  not 
only  that  this  interdependence  is  a  fact;  we  must  see  that  this 
fact  is  the  necessary  outgrowth  of  the  fundamental  fact  of 
interest. 

If  we  place  a  plant  in  a  cellar  to  which  only  a  narrow 
crevice  admits  a  ray  of  sunlight,  we  find  after  a  few  days  that 
the  plant  is  growing  toward  that  crevice.  Within  the  plant 
is  some  sort  of  interest  that  makes  it  seek  sunlight.     The  sun- 

'  Cf.  Lang,  Social  Origins;   and  Atkinson,  Primal  Law,  f^assim. 
»Cf.  Part  VII. 


THE  PRIMITIVE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  209 

light  furnishes  something  that  the  plant  wants.  It,  accord- 
ingly, tries  to  get  into  partnership  with  the  sunlight. 

Speaking  literally,  there  is  something  like  this  —  how  like 
and  how  unlike  need  not  trouble  us  at  present  —  in  the  social 
process.  Not  referring  to  the  facts  of  animal  propagation, 
which  unite  generations  by  the  bond  of  blood,  leaving  no  gap 
in  the  physical  continuity  of  races,  there  are  facts  about  persons 
which  satisfy  or  antagonize  the  interests  of  other  persons. 
People  are  not  therefore  like  fugitive  bits  of  dust  in  the  air  — 
disconnected  with  each  other.  Persons  everywhere  attract  or 
repel  persons.  Persons  lean  toward  each  other  or  avoid  each 
other.  Persons  attach  themselves  to  each  other  or  proscribe 
each  other.  Persons  form  groups,  because  inborn  interests 
push  them  toward  association,  in  place  of  individual  isolation, 
and  also  stimulate  antagonism  to  other  associations. 

The  reference  is  now  to  groups  in  which  the  bond  of  union 
is  not  alone  the  mere  physical  bond,  but  in  which  choices  in  a 
measure  independent  of  physical  necessity  begin  to  operate. 

In  the  purposeful  groupings  of  persons  we  have  the  initial 
phenomena  of  the  social  process  in  the  proper  sense  —  that  is, 
in  distinction  from  the  biological  process.  Perhaps  it  would 
be  more  correct  to  say:  in  groupings  so  far  as  they  are  pur- 
poseful. This  is  the  point  at  which  to  start,  if  we  would  find 
the  essentials  of  the  social  process.  While  we  must  hark  back 
constantly  to  the  traits  of  individual  persons,  the  philosophy 
of  social  action  can  never  long  at  a  time  leave  out  of  sight  the 
affinities  that  work  in  groups  of  persons.  In  other  words,  the 
social  process  is  a  continual  formation  of  groups  around  inter- 
ests, and  a  continual  exertion  of  reciprocal  influence  by  means 
of  group-action. 

We  will  use  the  terms  "  tribe  "  and  *'  tribal  condition  "  to 
designate  the  most  rudimentary  type  of  social  status  that  can 
be  described  in  detail.  For  all  that  we  positively  know  to  the 
contrary,  these  earliest  tribal  conditions  may  have  been  the 
outcome  of  social  processes  that  occupied  much  time  and 
passed  through  many  stages.     At  all  events,  we  have  only  the 


210  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

most  dubious  scientific  sanction  for  assuming  that  we  know 
the  "  original "  social  condition.  Speaking  of  men  in  the  least 
developed  social  status  that  has  been  credibly  described,  we 
might  almost  confess  that  we  are  in  candor  bound  to  stop  with 
this  noncommittal  generality  "  least  developed."  Whatever 
we  add  in  the  way  of  particulars  has  various  chances  of  being 
out  of  focus,  especially  if  we  try  to  make  statements  that  apply 
to  more  than  one  case  at  a  time. 

Considering  both  the  facts  reported,  and  the  character  of 
the  investigations  on  which  the  reports  were  based,  we  prob- 
ably have  no  better  cases  of  quasi-original  conditions  than 
those  described  by  Spencer  and  Gillen.^  As  those  writers 
clearly  enough  show,  it  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  use  the 
simplest  words  in  the  languages  of  civilized  men,^  in  connec- 
tion with  these  tribes,  without  attributing  facts,  or  relations, 
or  ratios  of  each,  that  do  not  exist.  In  connection  with  the 
rudest  tribes,  the  words  "  father,"  "  mother,"  "  husband," 
"wife,"  "brother,"  "sister,"  "family,"  "right,"  "wrong," 
and  of  course  all  terms  that  have  less  constant  meanings,  vary 
from  the  sense  which  we  assign  to  them  somewhat  as  the  term 
"citizen"  in  the  case  of  Russian  peasants  would  vary  from  the 
sense  in  which  it  applies  to  American  farmers.  It  is  only  with 
this  qualification  that  we  can  safely  discuss  savage  tribes  in 
familiar  language. 

Having  the  Arunta  and  Warramunga  in  mind  as  examples, 
we  may  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  no  sufficient  warrant  appears 
for  denying  that  individuals  in  the  lowest  tribal  state  manifest 
some  small  degree  at  least  of  each  generic  human  interest.  To 
be  sure,  we  might  put  into  our  terms  arbitrary  or  conventional 
meanings  that  by  definition  would  deny  each  of  these  interests 
to  savages.  With  a  restricted  sense  reserved  for  each  predi- 
cate, we  might  say  that  the  Arunta,  for  instance,  show  signs  of 
neither  the  health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  beauty,  nor 
Tightness  interest.  The  truth  would  be  that,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  health,  they  afford  very  little  of  the  same  kind  of 

"Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  1899;  ami  Northern  Tribes  of 
Central  Australia,   1904. 


THE  PRIMITIVE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  211 

evidence  of  those  interests  which  our  present  standards  demand. 
They  have  no  hygienic,  economic,  poHtical,  scientific,  aesthetic, 
or  ethical  organizations,  of  a  sort  that  would  cut  much  figure 
in  advanced  society.  They  give  little  evidence  of  abstract 
thinking  about  any  of  these  interests.  When  we  explain  their 
actions,  if  we  happen  to  be  correct,  the  explanation  probably 
never  occurred  to  them.  It  is  our  formulation  of  causes  and 
effects  which  never  assumed  that  relation  in  their  minds.  In  a 
word,  their  desires  represented  a  maximum  of  the  instinctive 
form  of  the  interests,  and  a  minimum  of  the  conscious  form. 
At  the  same  time,  from  another  point  of  view,  we  may  say  that 
the  actions  of  the  most  primitive  men  known  manifest  a  certain 
degree  of  response  to  stimuli  which  we  must  interpret  as  rudi- 
ments of  the  general  interests. 

In  the  second  place,  primitive  tribes  have  rudimentary 
social  structures,  which  serve  inchoate  social  functions.  It  is 
not  enough  to  say  that  the  members  of  the  tribe  complete  the 
round  of  their  lives  by  simply  feeding,  and  mating,  and  breed- 
ing, as  the  other  animals  do.  They  have  developed  a  certain 
system  in  their  feeding  and  mating  and  breeding.  It  is  not 
certain  that  the  system  is  more  complex  than  the  social  system 
of  bees  and  ants,  for  instance ;  but  there  is  plenty  of  evidence 
in  the  case  of  savages,  not  discovered  in  the  case  of  bees  and 
ants,  that  forces  are  beginning  to  be  set  free  which  must  pres- 
ently carry  the  human  social  process  far  beyond  that  of  the 
other  animals. 

In  the  third  place,  while  we  may  not  venture  in  this  argu- 
ment to  interpret  tribal  conditions,^  we  may  name  elements  in 
the  structure  of  the  tribe.  Referring  to  the  same  illustrations, 
we  have,  first,  the  totcmic  structure;  second,  the  arrangement 
of  the  sexes;  and,  third,  the  system  of  secret  rites.  It  would 
be  a  theorem  in  explanation,  if  we  should  assert  that  this 
classification  corresponds  exactly  with  the  functional  meaning 

*  In  this  field  my  colleague,  Professor  W.  I.  Thomas,  has  done  notable 
original  work,  and  I  have  not  expressed  even  the  summary  judgments  contained 
in  this  and  the  following  chapters  without  getting  the  support  of  his  con- 
clusions. 


212  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  these  systems.  In  all  probability  it  does  not.  The  totem 
not  merely  rallies  a  fraction  of  the  tribe  supposed  to  be  nearest 
of  kin,  but  it  doubtless  has  economic,  moral,  and  religious 
meanings.  Possibly  all  this  is  true  in  a  way  of  the  other  two 
systems.  The  essential  thing  is  that  interests,  such  as  they  are 
in  the  savage  tribe,  produce  a  certain  structural  and  functional 
arrangement.  Thinking  of  the  social  process  as  beginning  at 
this  point  —  a  harmless  fiction  after  the  qualifications  above  — 
we  have  now  before  us  in  the  concrete  elements  which  we 
schedule  generally  in  Part  VI ;  viz. :  environment,  interests, 
individuals,  social  structure,  social  functions,  social  purposes. 
The  incessant  workings  of  reciprocal  cause  and  effect  between 
these  elements  make  up  the  social  process. 

In  the  fourth  place,  implied  in  the  last  paragraph,  the  sav- 
age tribe  exhibits  the  rudiments  of  social  authority.^  This 
authority  is  apparently  at  first  not  that  of  individual  over 
individual,  nor  of  functionaries  over  individuals,  in  the  mod- 
ern sense  of  those  terms.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  authority 
of  group-interests,  made  vivid  in  group-customs,  and  insisted 
upon  by  virtually  unanimous  group-opinion.  It  is  an  author- 
ity which  prescribes  conduct  very  minutely  with  reference  to 
the  whole  program  of  life.  Economic  activity,  relations  of 
persons,  beliefs,  rituals,  attitude  toward  outside  groups  —  all 
are  foreordained,  and  perhaps  more  specifically  and  per- 
emptorily than  any  conduct  of  civilized  men,  under  constitu- 
tions and  statutes. 

To  social  beginnings  which  must  be  described  along  the 
general  lines  thus  indicated,  not  to  the  phenomena  in  connec- 
tion with  which  he  stated  the  proposition,  we  would  apply  the 
familiar  words  of  Herbert  Spencer : 

Setting  out  with  socal  units  as  thus  conditioned,  as  thus  constituted 
physically,  emotionally,  and  intellectually,  and  as  thus  possessed  of  certain 
early-acquired  notions  and  correlative  fccliuRs,  the  Science  of  Sociology 
has  to  give  an  account  of  all  the  phenomena  that  result  from  their  com- 
bined actions.* 

'  Mr.  Eben  Mumford  is  about  to  publish  an  important  study  of  this  subject. 

'Principles    of   Sociology,    Vol.    I,    sec.    210,    quoted    above,    chap.    6. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

STAGES  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS 

Our  present  argument  is  not  an  attempt  to  demonstrate 
the  series  of  stages  through  which  the  social  process  has  passed. 
We  are  rather  concerned  with  showing  that  the  work  of  making 
out  such  series  remains  to  be  done,  and  that  until  it  is  done  the 
gaps  in  our  social  knowledge  are  serious.  The  problem  is  a 
distinct  advance  upon  the  work  done  by  Herbert  Spencer,  for 
instance  in  Parts  III-VIII,  inclusive,  of  his  Principles  of  Soci- 
ology. Whatever  his  own  estimate  may  have  been  of  the 
results  there  set  down,  he  neither  succeeded  in  making  out  a 
sequence  in  stages  of  the  social  process  in  any  selected  case, 
nor  did  he  collect  sufficient  evidence  about  any  given  step  in 
the  process  to  justify  an  induction  as  to  the  method  of  transi- 
tion from  one  stage  of  the  process  to  another.  He  exhibited 
assorted  types  of  the  several  chief  social  institutions,  as  they 
have  appeared  among  different  peoples.  How  it  comes  about 
that  one  of  these  types  of  institution  gave  place  to  another  type 
of  institution  does  not  appear  in  the  evidence. 

We  are  not  yet  in  a  position  to  supply  that  lack  to  any 
large  extent.  The  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that  the  operation  of  interests  in  human  groups  tends, 
from  the  beginning,  to  motion  within  the  groups,  and  that  the 
motion  sooner  or  later  gathers  strength  enough  to  change 
the  form  and  tone  and  tendency  of  the  process  which  the 
groups  carry  on.  We  have  pitifully  little  insight  as  yet  into 
the  precise  steps  of  such  transitions.  We  have  to  make  our 
way  toward  knowledge  of  them  by  first  making  the  lack  of 
information  as  conspicuous  as  possible. 

It  has  been  taken  for  granted  over  and  over  again  that  a 
change  in  a  form  of  government  or  in  the  personnel  of  ruling 
bodies  is  an  affair  so  vital  that  nothing  profounder  could  be  told 

213 


214  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  a  society.  We  have  accordingly  been  satisfied  not  to  look 
deeper  or  wider.  In  fact,  political  revolutions  are  quite  as 
likely  to  be  effects  as  causes,  and,  whether  effects  or  causes, 
they  do  not  necessarily  register  the  most  important  social 
changes  of  which  they  were  incidents.  For  example,  it  has 
been  claimed  that  the  reason  why  the  Revolution  broke  out  in 
France  rather  than  in  Germany  was  that  social  changes  had 
already  occurred  in  the  former  country,  which  came  much  later 
in  the  latter.^  Still  further,  it  is  an  open  question  whether  the 
total  political  changes  involved  in  exchanging  Louis  XVI  for 
the  first  Napoleon  amounted  to  as  much  socially  as  the  change 
of  relations  that  has  occurred  between  the  people  of  France  and 
the  papacy  under  the  present  republic. 

Accordingly,  we  are  bound  to  be  on  our  guard  against 
assuming  that  the  social  process  is  identical  with  the  building 
up  or  tearing  down  of  governments,  or  ecclesiastical  systems, 
or  economic  orders,  or  any  other  mere  structure.  Each  and 
all  of  these  are  means,  machineries,  by  which  the  process  of 
realizing  interests  is  carried  on.  Changes  in  the  means  are 
worth  what  they  are  worth  for  the  total  process.  We  may  and 
must  depend  on  these  changes  to  mark  advances  in  the  process, 
but  we  must  not  assume  that  the  external  sign  is  the  only 
reality. 

Our  main  proposition  is  that  human  groups  either  reach 
certain  degrees  of  achievement  in  the  satisfaction  of  interests 
and  then  stop,  or  they  make  any  given  plane  of  achievement 
the  base  of  operations  in  developing  successive  stages  in  the 
process  of  realizing  interests.  That  is,  the  social  process,  so 
long  as  it  lasts,  is  a  succession  of  stages  in  the  correlation  of 
human  activities,  each  stage  marked  off  from  those  before  or 
after  by  certain  distinguishing  traits. 

How  the  social  stages  may  be  most  appropriately  indicated, 
is  a  question  alx)ut  which  there  are  almost  as  many  opinions 
as  there  are  social  theorists.    These  disagreements  at  all  events 

'  Cf.  De  Tocqueville,  L'ancien  regime  ct  la  ri'iolntion.  Book  II,  chap,  i, 
et  passim. 


STAGES  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  215 

make  the  essential  fact  the  more  evident,  viz.,  that  stages  of 
the  social  process  differ  from  each  other  in  so  many  ways  that 
the  task  of  procuring  unanimity  about  the  best  way  to  analyze 
them  seems  almost  hopeless.  This  deadlock  among  theorists 
need  not  trouble  us  in  our  present  undertaking.  We  are  simply 
pointing  out  that  the  social  process,  involving  distinct  stages, 
is  a  reality;  and  that  progressive  social  knowledge  will  persist 
in  attempts  to  discriminate  and  to  trace  the  precise  order  of 
these  stages,  and  to  determine  the  laws  that  have  governed 
transitions  from  one  to  another  stage. 

For  illustration  we  may  cite  the  familiar  classification  of 
"the  principal  stages  of  human  development"  by  Lewis  H. 
Morgan.^  It  is  based  on  progress  of  invention  and  discovery, 
and  the  summary  is  as  follows: 

1.  Lower  Status  of  Savagery.  From  the  infancy,  of  the  human  race  to 
the  commencement  of  the  next  period. 

2.  Middle  Status  of  Savagery.  From  the  acquisition  of  a  fi.sh  subsist- 
ence, and  a  knowledge  of  the  use  of  fire,  to  the  invention  of  the  bow 
and  arrow. 

3.  Upper  Status  of  Savagery.  From  the  invention  of  the  bow  and  arrow 
to  the  invention  of  the  art  of  pottery. 

4.  Lower  Status  of  Barbarism.  From  practice  of  the  art  of  pottery  to 
domestication  of  animals  in  the  eastern  hemisphere,  to  the  cultivation 
of  maize  and  plants  by  irrigation,  and  to  the  use  of  adobe,  brick,  and 
stone  in  house-building,  in  the  western. 

5.  Middle  Status  of  Barbarism.  From  the  end  of  the  previous  stage  to 
the  invention  of  the  process  of  smelting  iron  ore. 

6.  Upper  Status  of  Barbarism.  Beginning  with  the  manufacture  of  iron, 
and  ending  with  the  invention  of  a  phonetic  alphabet,  and  the  use  of 
writing  in  literary  composition. 

7.  Status  of  Civilization.  From  the  beginning  of  the  use  of  writing  to 
the  present  time.' 

Since  we  shall  presently  follow  Ratzenhofer's  guidance  in 
our  general  account  of  later  stages  of  the  social  process,  his 
classification  of  the  social  stages  should  be  noticed. 

^Ancient  Society,  chap.  1. 

'  For  a  brief  resume  and  criticism  of  alternative  schemes,  with  a  proposed 
substitute,  vide  Steinmetz,  "Classification  des  types  sociaux,"  in  Durkheim's 
L'annce  sociologique,  Vol.  Ill  (1900). 


2i6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

He  makes  out  two  distinct  series  in  the  social  process.  It 
will  do  most  complete  justice  to  his  idea  to  present  these  series 
in  parallel  columns,  thus : 

STAGES     OF     CONFLICT     DEVELOPMENT*         STAGES      OF      ETHICAL      DEVELOPMENT* 

&    Ethical   satisfaction. 
7.    Aggressive    combinations    cross-      7.    Preservation    and    multiplication 

ing  state  boundaries.  of -sources  of  supply. 

6.    Balance  of  power.  6.    Intensive  production. 

5.    Coalitions.  5.    Diplomacy  between  States. 

4.    Hegemony  and   world-control.  4.    Universal  freedom,  with  equality 

of  legal  rights. 
3.    State  as  exclusive  society.  3.    Political     self-restraint     for    the 

sake  of  peace. 
2.    Settled  race.  2.    Community  of  interest. 

I.    Horde  and  race.  i.    Care  for  fellow-beings. 

In  spite  of  his  extended  analysis  of  these  two  series,  or 
perhaps  more  properly  because  of  the  very  minuteness  of  his 
analysis,  their  relation  to  each  other  in  Ratzenhofer's  own 
mind  is  by  no  means  clear.  His  idea,  on  the  whole,  seems  to 
be,  not  that  the  one  series  follows  the  other,  nor  that  they 
are  precisely  parallel  with  each  other.  The  conflict  series  has 
the  start  of  the  ethical  series,  and  for  a  long-  time  seems  to  be 
wholly  decisive.  Indeed,  Ratzenhofer  devotes  so  much  space 
to  exposition  of  this  series  that  his  briefer  discussion  of  the 
ethical  series  probably  does  not  have  the  effect  of  making  it 
seem  as  important  in  his  system  as  he  intended.  The  trite 
figure  of  the  warp  and  the  woof  in  the  web  might  be  of  some 
service  in  conveying  his  thought,  but  the  analogy  would  not 
be  very  close.  The  conflict  series  represents  rather  a  progres- 
sion in  forms  of  social  reaction,  while  the  ethical  series  repre- 
sents rather  the  content  of  this  visible  reaction.  Just  as  the 
most  evident  facts  in  a  factory  are  the  motion,  and  the  noise, 
and  the  heat,  and  the  dirt;  while  all  this  is  merely  incidental 
to  the  less  evident  progress  of  raw  material  from  one  stage  of 
manufacture  to  another;    so  the  conflict  series  is  rather  an 

*lVesen  und  Zweck,  Vol.  I,  sec.  12.  ^  Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  sec.  62. 


STAGES  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  217 

exhibit  of  social  machinery  and  its  motions,  while  the  ethical 
series  is  the  content  of  the  movement. 

Without  expressing  a  judgment  about  the  comparative 
value  of  the  classifications  of  social  stages  just  referred  to, 
we  may  expand  our  general  theorem  as  follows : 

Human  associations  are  not  things ;  they  are  processes.  To 
know  them,  we  must  ascertain  their  functional  values,  just 
as  truly  as  we  must  know  both  the  general  and  the  special 
service  to  be  rendered  by  a  wheel,  or  a  shaft,  or  a  valve,  or  a 
connecting-gear,  in  order  to  be  able  to  classify  that  part  of  a 
machine,  first  in  its  immediate  relations  to  the  machine  as  a 
whole,  and  then  in  a  general  mechanical  scale.  As  we  have 
seen,  human  life,  in  the  individual  or  in  associations,  is  a 
process  of  realizing  latent  interests.  The  life  of  a  given  primi- 
tive group,  of  a  people  at  any  stage  of  historical  development, 
of  any  contemporary  civilization,  or  of  a  minor  association 
within  an  earlier  or  a  later  civilization,  is  a  stage  and  a  factor 
in  that  process.  Human  associations  must  be  classified,  then, 
not.  as  though  they  were  constant  structures,  but  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  they  are  variable  functions.  They  must  be  dis- 
tinguished by  the  part  which  they  perform  in  the  life-process. 
Inasmuch  as  that  part  varies  according  as  the  whole  process 
is  less  or  more  highly  developed,  the  classification  of  associa- 
tions that  would  satisfy  the  facts  of  one  stage  of  evolution 
would  not  fit  the  facts  of  another  stage.  Associations  must 
therefore  be  classified  functionally,  and,  more  than  that,  our 
working  test  of  all  functional  classifications  must  be  our  teleo- 
logical  concepts.  That  is,  we  are  bound  to  schedule  associa- 
tions in  accordance  with  our  judgment  of  their  relation  to 
the  scale  of  the  ends  at  issue  in  the  particular  situation  in 
which  those  associations  function. 

Returning  to  the  question  of  criteria  by  which  to  distin- 
guish social  stages,  we  may  say  with  confidence  that,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  no  simple  criterion  can  be  adequate.  We 
have  seen  that  the  social  process  is  a  perpetual  equating  of 
interests.     We  have  classified  all  the  specific  interests  which 


2l8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

men  have  been  known  to  betray  in  six  generic  groups.  Social 
stages  concern  each  of  these  groups.  At  any  selected  stage 
the  element  contributed  by  each  interest,  not  by  one  or  two 
alone,  may  vary  both  in  quality  and  in  quantity  from  the  cor- 
responding element  in  every  other  stage.  This  is  merely  a 
more  abstract  way  of  saying  that  an  adequate  standard  for 
measuring  social  stages  would  have  to  be  a  multiple  standard. 
To  illustrate :  Suppose  we  represent  social  stages  by  X, 
X\  X",  X'" ,  etc.,  and  the  generic  interests  by  a,  h,  c,  d,  c,  and  /. 
Then  the  simplest  symbol  that  could  be  used  for  a  given  social 
stage,  in  terms  of  its  component  interests,  would  be  the  equa- 
tion : 

X=i^(^„,,,  ^„,,  ^„., A,). 

X' ,  X" ,  X'",  etc.,  would  differ  from  X  because  of  changes  in 
the  value  of  either  variant,  n  or  q,  in  either  term. 

Expressing  the  same  thing  literally,  one  social  stage  may 
differ  from  another  because  the  term  representing  one  generic 
interest  only  may  have  a  value  different  from  that  which  it 
has  in  other  social  stages.  The  probability  is  that  a  variation 
in  the  value  of  one  term  will  be  accompanied  by  variation  in 
the  value  of  one  or  more  of  the  remaining  terms.  Still  fur- 
ther, it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  most  important  differ- 
ences between  social  stages  will  be  marked  by  variations  of  the 
same  term.  Thus  a  stage  X'may  be  most  strongly  character- 
ized by  the  value  of  term  a;  a  change  in  the  relative  impor- 
tance of  term  b  may  set  off  another  stage  X' ;  the  altered 
significance  of  term  c  may  justify  discrimination  of  a  stage 
X" ;  and  so  on.  If,  therefore,  we  attempt  to  classify  social 
stages  by  use  of  either  of  the  simple  criteria  above  noticed,  we 
arc  sure  to  make  an  arbitrary  series.  A  social  stage  that  is 
marked  chiefly  by  alterations  in  the  index  value  of  hygienic,  or 
social,  or  scientific,  or  aesthetic,  or  ethical  interests  cannot  be 
fitted  into  an  economic  classification.  All  attempts  to  reduce 
social  stages  to  a  common  economic  denominator  are  fore- 
ordained falsifications.     Since  they  assume  the  constant  super- 


STAGES  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  219 

importance  of  the  economic  element,  they  estop  discovery  of 
the  greater  importance  of  other  elements,  when  the  latter  are 
in  turn  decisive.  The  same  must  be  said  of  each  of  the  six 
generic  interests.  Neither  of  them  is  a  competent  measure  of 
a  process  in  which  each  may  from  time  to  time  occupy  places 
shifting  from  top  to  bottom  of  the  scale  of  relative  value. 

Returning  to  Ratzenhofer's  scheme  for  illustration,  we 
may  say  that  he  appears  to  have  respected  the  foregoing  con- 
clusion more  in  substance  than  he  did  in  form.  His  "  Stages 
of  Ethical  Development  "  are  evidently  not  variations  of  activi- 
ties within  our  group  "  rightness  "  merely.  They  cover  in  a 
way  the  whole  gamut  of  interests.  On  the  other  hand,  his 
"Stages  of  Conflict  Development,"  if  held  to  strict  account, 
would  prove  to  be  based  on  the  assumption  that  a  more  or  less 
of  a  certain  forvi  of  the  social  process  is  the  distinctive  mark 
of  social  stages.  More  precisely,  according  to  his  assumption, 
one  social  stage  differs  from  another  by  variations  in  the  mass 
and  manner  of  conflict  among  the  people  concerned. 

The  first  and  more  impressive  half  of  Ratzenhofer's  work 
is  constructed  on  the  basis  of  this  assumption.     Yet  the  more 
we  read  between  the  lines,  the  more  we  discover  that  this 
conflict  explanation  is  in  effect  a  rhetorical  recourse,  rather 
than  a  strictly  fundamental  hypothesis.     Conflict  turns  out  to  \ 
be  a  symptom,  an  incident,  a  means  —  we  may  even  say  for  / 
the  greater  part  of  known  history  the  most  evident  symptom,   ) 
incident,    means  —  to   that   very   accommodation   of   interests   i 
which  makes  up  the  ethical  series.     But  to  make  divisions  of 
social  stages  turn  upon  the  kind  of  conflict  that  is  carried  on 
may  be  reduced  ad  absiirdiDn  by  formulation  in  a  particular 
case,   thus :      "  The   progress   of   European   civilization    from 
Charlemagne  to  Wilhelm  II  is  gauged  by  the  changes  in  equip- 
ment, discipline,  tactics,  and  strategy  of  European  armies  "  ! 

No  !  Human  interests  are  always  the  essential  thing. 
Clashings  or  conjunctions  of  interests  are  external  and  tribu- 
tary. These  latter  may  be  accepted  as  milestones  of  progress, 
but  only  in  the  sense  in  which  we  use  popes  or  kings  to  mark 


220  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

historic  zones.  The  popes  and  the  kings  are  not  the  social 
process.  They  may  be  merely  punctuation  marks  in  the  record 
of  the  process.  So  struggle,  as  such,  means  nothing.  The 
persons  struggling,  and  the  interests  for  which  they  struggle, 
are  the  meaning  terms.  Still  we  may  use  even  this  most  ques- 
tionable part  of  Ratzenhofer's  scheme  to  emphasize  the  fact 
of  social  stages ;  while  we  must  decline  to  accept  his  rating 
of  conflict  as  the  final  index  of  the  stages. 

Reduced  to  the  simplest  form  of  expression,  Ratzenhofer's 
theorem  is  that  stages  of  conflict  development,  or  at  any  rate 
the  earliest  of  them,  belong  in  a  scale  produced  by  variations 
in  the  type  of  regulative  authority.  That  is,  if  we  make  the 
tribal  condition,  as  described  in  the  previous  chapter,  the  low- 
est stage  in  the  scale,  other  stages  will  rise  above  it  in  the 
order  of  differentiation  of  hostile  interests,  and  of  institutions 
for  holding  hostility  in  check.  Later  chapters  must  supply 
details  that  will  do  more  complete  justice  to  his  whole  theory. 
This  initial  proposition  alone  would  seem  to  call  for  a  classifi- 
cation of  social  stages  on  the  basis  of  variations  of  a  factor 
that  composes  our  term  "  sociability,"  or  c  in  our  algebraic 
formula. 

We  have  stated  the  general  principle  which  challenges  all 
such  simple  explanations.^  It  would  carry  us  too  far  into  detail 
if  we  should  attempt  to  analyze  the  particular  applications  of 
the  principle  in  this  instance.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  Ratzen- 
hofer's supposition  not  merely  attributes  to  this  element  an 
importance  that  no  single  factor  in  the  social  process  can 
claim,  but,  still  further,  the  supposition  is  supported  by  a  highly 
imaginative  account  of  the  passage  from  tribal  to  civic  condi- 
tions. 

Thus  Ratzenhofer  implies  that  the  tribal  condition  and  the 
nomadic  state  necessarily  go  togctlier ;  that  tribal  authority 
is  a  negligible  quantity;  and  that  the  organizations  of  author- 
ity in  subsequent  stages  necessarily  involve  advances  upon  the 
tribal  condition  in  respect  of  social  control.     So  far  as  positive 

"Cf.  pp.  SI,  52. 


STAGES  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  221 

evidence  appears,  each  of  these  assumptions  contains  less 
Wahrhcit  than .  Dichtung. 

The  hypothesis  develops  in  this  form :  After  tribes  have 
taken  permanent  possession  of  lands,  there  follows  division  of 
the  land,  either  temporary  or  permanent,  among  families.  At 
the  same  time  there  occur  struggles  to  destroy  or  to  drive  out 
other  tribes.  The  settled  tribe  begins  to  manifest  the  essential 
traits  of  a  mature  community.  We  find,  for  instance,  first  a 
patriarchal  authority,  and,  second,  a  recognized  tradition,  or 
body  of  customs,  in  accordance  with  which  the  authority  is 
exercised.  By  these  means,  violence  is  restrained  within  the 
group,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  power  of  the  group  is  con- 
centrated for  exertion  upon  outside  forces.  Thus  the  marks 
of  the  second  stage  of  conflict  development  are  the  separate 
family  and  the  settled  tribe.  In  such  a  community  as  this  there 
develop  authority,  defense,  and  judicature.  Public  business 
is  confined  to  provision  against  crime,  i.  e.,  violation  of  custom; 
to  protection  against  attack,  and  to  wars  for  extension  of  terri- 
tory, i.  e.^  to  insure  means  of  support. 

The  third  stage  in  conflict  development  is  marked  by  the 
State  and  civic  society.  The  subjugation  of  already  settled 
tribes  by  nomads,  and  thereby  the  conquest  of  lands  and 
laborers,  brings  in  this  stage.  Authority  becomes  sovereignty. 
Defense  and  judicature  remain  the  prerogatives  of  the  victor. 
The  vanquished  become  slaves. 

From  this  time  on  conflict  falls  into  two  divisions :  first, 
the  struggle  for  the  exercise  of  the  sovereignty  against  the 
opposition,  i.  e.,  internal  politics ;  second,  the  struggle  of  the 
community  with  foreign  groups  to  secure  and  extend  the  com- 
munity possessions,  i.  e.,  external  politics.  In  the  former 
division  hostility  is  limited.     In  the  latter  case  it  is  absolute. 

This  highly  idealized  scheme  is  an  excellent  illustration 
of  the  abstract  conception  "  social  stages,"  but  it  would  be, 
to  say  the  least,  premature  to  accept  the  description  as  a  valid 
generalization  of  the  actual  process  from  savagery  to  legal 
States.    The  surmise  does  not  fit  our  present  knowledge  of  the 


222  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Stock  of  Abraham,  either  before  or  after  the  Egyptian  captivity. 
It  does  not  satisfy  the  facts  of  the  Iroquois  Confederacy.'^ 
There  is  plenty  of  room  for  doubt  whether  it  correctly  expresses 
the  genesis  of  the  Hellenic  chieftainships  of  the  pre-Homeric 
period.  There  is  much  reason  to  presume  that,  if  we  had 
literal  accounts  of  all  the  racial  metamorphoses  which  have 
taken  place,  from  the  primitive  tribe  to  civic  government,  the 
methods  would  often  prove  to  depart  widely  from  the  type  thus 
constructed. 

The  fact  that  Ratzenhofer,  or  any  other  theorist,  is  not  con- 
clusive when  he  carries  surmises  about  the  primitive  social 
process  beyond  the  frontier  of  established  fact,  does  not  in  the 
least  affect  the  essential  point  of  this  chapter.  We  do  not 
know  enough  details  about  the  actual  advance  of  any  single 
tribe  through  the  conditions  intervening  between  savagery  and 
legalized  government,  to  justify  very  confident  assertions  about 
the  relative  value  of  the  factors  involved,  or  the  precise  method 
of  their  co-operation.  Generalizing  our  meager  information 
about  the  many  tribes,  into  a  formula  of  the  steps  taken  by  all 
tribes  in  covering  this  interval,  of  course  amounts  only  to 
more  or  less  impressive  conjecture.  Nevertheless,  it  is  evident 
from  our  fragmentary  knowledge  that  the  passage  of  no 
tribe  from  savagery  to  civic  order  could  have  been  by  a 
leap;  it  must  have  been  by  a  process.  Innumerable  cross- 
sections  of  this  process  have  been  observed,  and  more  or  less 
accurately  described.  Each  of  these  cross-sections  represents 
a  major  or  minor  stage  in  the  process  in  a  single  tribe  or  race. 
That  is,  there  are  distinct  types  of  correlation  among  the  inter- 
ests working  together  to  carry  on  the  social  process  of  every 
tribe.  Ilie  prevalence  of  one  of  these  social  types  constitutes 
a  stage  in  the  life-process  of  that  tribe.  The  adjustment  of 
interests  is,  on  the  whole,  less  developed  in  one  stage,  and  more 
developed  in  another.  Whether  we  can  make  out  the  chief 
traits  of  these  stages  or  not,  whether  we  can  discover  the 
precise  order  of  succession  of  the  stages  or  not.  whether  we  can 

'  Morgan,  Ancient  Society,  chap.  5. 


STAGES  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  223 

ascertain  the  laws  of  the  forces  that  transform  one  stage  into 
another  or  not,  we  have  taken  a  first  step  toward  social  intelH- 
gence  when  we  have  reached  the  distinct  perception  that  these 
stages  exist,  and  that  the  social  process  will  not  be  understood 
until  the  facts  about  the  most  significant  social  stages  are  veri- 
fied and  interpreted.  Among  the  divisions  of  sociological  labor 
which  will  doubtless  develop  in  the  near  future,  attempts  to 
identify  social  stages,  and  to  classify  them  in  a  scale,  according 
to  relative  realization  of  interests,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  notable. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS' 

In  Part  I,  chap,  i,  reference  was  made  to  faults  of  method 
which  have  retarded  the  progress  of  social  knowledge.  By 
whatever  name  they  have  preferred  to  be  known,  social  theo- 
rists have  been  very  generally  addicted  to  one  or  both  of  two 
logical  vices.  On  the  one  hand,  they  have  confined  themselves 
to  such  restricted  ranges  of  evidence  that  they  have  lost  sight 
of  connections  with  other  segments  of  the  social  process;  or 
possibly  they  have  never  had  such  outlook  to  lose,  and  their 
provincialism  is  congenital.  On  the  other  hand,  men  of  more 
speculative  temper  have  been  so  zealous  to  construct  philoso- 
phies of  society  that  they  have  covered  time  and  space  with 
a  priori  reasonings,  but  have  failed  ignominiously  to  fortify 
their  doctrines  with  positive  evidence. 

If  we  take  him  at  his  word,  Bastian,  "  the  founder  of 
ethnology  in  Germany,"  deliberately  chose  the  downward  road 
to  the  former  vice.  Of  his  plan  in  laying  foundations  for  a 
new  social  science,  and  of  his  program  during  his  long 
researches  among  primitive  peoples,  he  says : 

Familiar  with  the  various  branches  of  Hterature,  my  first  care  was  to 
erase  from  the  tables  of  my  memory  as  completely  as  possible  all  the 
dogmas  that  I  had  learned  in  the  schools.  Only  when  my  conclusions  from 
purely  objective  and  unprejudiced  observation  confirmed  the  conventional 
ideas,  or  rather  necessarily  led  back  to  them,  did  I  allow  them  to  take  a 
place  again  as  authorized  portions  of  my  thinking.* 

Whether  Bastian  actually  yielded  to  the  temptation  that 
lurks  in  this  program,  we  need  not  decide.  Certain  it  is  that 
his  greatest  services  to  science  are  those  of  a  collector,  rather 
than  those  of  an  interpreter  of  ethnological  material. 

'  Ratzenhofer,  Wesen  und  Zweck,  Vol.  1,  Part  I,  and  Sociologische  Erkennt- 
niss,  sees.  12-15. 

^  Dcr  Mcnsch  in  dcr  Gcschichte,  Vol.  I,  Vorrede,  p.  xvi. 

224 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS  225 

For  another  illustration,  we  may  again  point  the  obvious, 
but  none  too  familiar,  moral  from  English  economic  theory  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  Adam  Smith's  scheme  of  lectures  on 
"Moral  Philosophy"  at  Glasgow  proves  that  he  had  a  broad 
and  fairly  adequate  view  of  the  chief  divisions  of  the  social 
process.^  If  the  disciples  of  Adam  Smith  had  constantly 
oriented  themselves  by  reference  to  this  general  survey, 
instead  of  taking  their  cue  from  The  Wealth  of  Nations  alone, 
they  might  not  only  have  shared  in  developing  a  sane  sociology, 
but  without  much  doubt  the  economic  theory  which  would 
have  been  a  division  of  that  sociology  would  have  gained  both 
in  breadth  and  depth  from  the  association.  In  fact,  until  John 
Stuart  Mill,  the  economists  grew  less  and  less  able  to  focus 
anything  but  wealth-interests  within  their  field  of  vision. 
Under  their  treatment  society  tended  to  shrivel  into  a  mere 
association  of  wealth-getters  and  wealth-users. 

Because  the  case  is  so  notorious,  we  may  cite,  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  other  vice,  Rousseau's  social-contract  theory.'*  It 
does  not  even  claim  to  rest  upon  ascertained  facts,  but  it  is  a 
purely  speculative  picture  of  a  past  conjured  up  by  the  author's 
deductions  from  a  priori  premises. 

In  the  sections  discussed  in  the  last  chapter,  Ratzenhofer 
has  furnished  a  much  more  innocent  case  of  the  same  vice. 
The  bulk  of  his  work  deals  with  the  social  process  in  historical 
times.     In  the  main,  his  generalizations  may  be  held  to  the 

'The  course  "was  divided  into  four  parts:  (i)  natural  theology;  (2) 
ethics  ;  (3)  a  treatment  of  that  branch  of  morality  which  relates  to  justice,  a 
subject  which  he  handled  historically  after  the  manner  of  Montesquieu, 
endeavoring  to  trace  the  gradual  progress  of  jurisprudence,  both  public  and 
private,  from  the  rudest  to  the  most  refined  ages,  and  to  point  out  the  effect 
of  those  arts  which  contribute  to  subsistence,  and  to  the  accumulation  of  prop- 
erty, in  producing  corresponding  improvements  or  alterations  in  law  and  gov- 
ernment ;  (4)  a  study  of  those  political  regulations  which  are  founded,  not 
upon  the  principles  of  justice,  but  those  of  expediency,  and  which  are  calculated 
to  increase  the  riches,  the  power,  and  the  prosperity  of  a  State.  Under  this 
view  he  considered  the  political  institutions  relating  to  commerce,  to  finances, 
to  ecclesiastical  and  military  establishments."  (Ingram,  in  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica,  title  "  Adam  Smith.") 

*  The  Social  Contract,  trans,  by  Rose  M.  Harrington. 


226  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

test  of  fact.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  been  led  by  desire  to 
round  out  his  system  into  discoursing  about  phases  of  the 
prehistoric  process  in  a  way  not  sanctioned  by  the  present 

\ state  of  the  evidence. 
Positive  knowledge  of  the  social  process  must  depend  upon 
the  use  of  methods  which  avoid  both  these  vices.  It  is  neces- 
sary, on  the  one  hand,  to  analyze  concrete  conditions.  It  is 
necessary,  on  the  other  hand,  to  interpret  each  and  every  con- 
crete condition  by  locating  it  correctly  in  the  whole  social 
process.  We  can  hardly  find  a  secure  support  for  both  ele- 
ments of  this  program,  until  we  deal  with  the  social  process 
in  historic  ti)iics.  The  records  deal  chiefly  with  peoples  already 
organized  in  States.  If  we  restrict  attention  to  the  social 
process  within  States,  there  is  not  only  at  our  disposal  an 
enormous  mass  of  partially  sifted  evidence,  but  this  material 
permits  comparative  study  of  the  process  within  many  States. 
It  is  with  the  social  process  at  this  stage  that  Ratzenhofer  has 
done  his  effective  work,  and  the  most  clearly  indicated  line  of 
"Ni  advance  in  general  sociology  is  use  of  his  method.  He  has 
made  the  social  process  in  States  his  center  of  operations  in 
building  up  a  general  sociology.    We  shall  follow  his  example. 

We  must  at  the  outset  disarm  the  prejudice  that  States 
are  merely  political  organizations.  That  notion  is  parallel 
with  the  economic  provincialism  just  noticed.  The  modern 
State  is  both  a  political  organization  and  an  economic  system, 
but  it  is  much  more.  The  State  is  a  microcosm  of  the  whole 
human  process.  The  State  is  the  co-operation  of  the  citizens 
for  the  furtherance  of  all  the  interests  of  which  they  are 
conscious.^  ') 

That  is,  we  have  no  quarrel  with  those  legists  who  mean 
the  government  when  they  speak  of  the  State.  In  this  syllabus, 
however,  the  term  contains  no  trace  of  the  I'ctat  c'cst  moi  idea, 

°  This  paragraph  sufficiently  defines  the  sense  in  which  the  term  "  State  " 
is  used  in  this  argument.  We  might  adopt,  with  slight  variations,  Bluntschli's 
definition  :  "  The  State  is  a  combination  or  totality  of  men,  in  the  form  of 
government  and  governed,  on  a  definite  territory,  united  together  into  a  moral 
organized  personality  "   {Theory  of  the  State,  p.  23  ;    Clarendon  Press,   1885). 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS  227 

in  any  of  its  variations.    It  means  people  so  far  integrated  that 
a  government  is  one  of  their  bonds  of  union. 

We  need  not  overlook  international  intercourse,  and  inter- 
national law  and  comity  governing  the  intercourse ;  but  all  that 
occurs  within  this  larger  circuit  of  intercourse  occurs  also,  in 
embryo  at  least,  within  the  State.  For  qualitative  analysis, 
therefore,  we  may  confine  ourselves  at  the  outset  to  the  social 
process  within  State  boundaries.  We  may  abstract  the  State 
from  the  world  and,  up  to  a  point  which  will  appear  much  later 
in  our  analysis,  we  may  ignore  contacts  beyond  State  limits. 
States  embrace  all  other  associations  of  persons.  All  lesser 
associations  find  their  correlation  within  the  State.  The  State 
is  the  social  process  in  the  largest  unity  which  it  is  profitable  to 
consider.  We  shall,  accordingly,  speak  for  the  present  as 
though  States  were  the  whole  of  the  human  process. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  we  must  mobilize  a  notion  already 
used  in  this  argument,^  viz.,  thatvthe  social  process  in  general 
is  a  rhythm  of  differentiations  and  integrations.  That  is,  there 
are  evidently,  first,  individualizing  factors  at  work  throughout 
the  social  process.  These  cause  the  detachment  of  larger  or 
smaller  parts  from  the  tribe  or  the  nation.  Then  it  is  equally 
evident  that  socializing  factors  are  at  the  same  time  active. 
We  detect  the  effects  of  these  forces  when  many  persons  who 
had  been  unorganized,  or  in  merely  accidental  and  irregular 
contact  with  each  other,  are  subdued  by  one  or  more  persons 
and  brought  into  a  system  of  subordination.  We  detect  the 
same  thing  in  the  growth  of  States  through  the  merging  of 
co-ordinate  groups,  or  the  absorption  of  weaker  by  stronger 
groups. 

The  force  of  the  individualizing  factors  is  by  no  means 
eliminated  from  the  social  process  when  it  has  advanced  into 
the  national  stage.  States  are  always  individualizing  and 
differentiating  reactions  on  a  large  scale.  Indeed,  the  origin 
of  nations,  and  their  organization  as  States,  is  rather  an  assur- 
ance, and  in  a  certain  sense  a  cause,  of  further  individualization 

*  Cf.  above,  pp.  117,  118  et  passim. 


228  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

after  the  social  process  has  resulted  in  States.  The  same  ele- 
mental interests  which  work  together  to  make  States  continue 
their  work  in  producing  further  differentiation  within  States. 
.The  State  itself  is  a  highly  differentiated  social  structure. 
Within  the  State  we  have  at  once  the  differentiation  of  rulers 
and  subjects.  Then  the  initial  forms  of  interest  persist  — 
hunger,  sex,  and  kinship.  These,  with  the  less  elemental 
spiritual  interests,  perpetually  stimulate  differentiation.)  Every 
variation  in  the  form  of  these  ultimate  impulses  tends  to  pro- 
duce corresponding  variation  in  social  reaction,  and  presently 
in  social  structure.  If  the  tendency  has  scope  to  develop,  it 
brings  into  existence  another  group  within  the  State.  The 
members  of  this  group,  from  that  time  on,  reinforce  each  other 
against  opposing  interests.  Not  even  the  most  intolerant 
opponents  of  biological  symbolism  can  fail  to  observe  that  at 
this  point  there  is  likeness  between  States  and  physical  organ- 
isms. The  State  is  certainly  a  highly  complex  organization. 
It  is  an  organization  of  organizations.  It  is  more  than  a 
mechanical  organization  of  organizations.  The  groups  which 
are  co-ordinated  within  the  State,  and  to  some  extent  by  the 
State,  grow  into  and  out  of  each  other,  without  conscious  guid- 
ance by  anybody,  as  well  as  by  deliberate  invention.  It  is 
petty  and  petulant  to  question  this  resemblance,  because  the 
real  situation  is  more  clearly  exposed  to  view  by  means  of  the 
analogy  than  without  such  aid.'^ 

Just  as  in  a  physical  organism  the  number  of  organisms 
multiplies,  and  through  this  multiplication  the  whole  organism 
becomes  adapted  to  a  larger  total  activity,  so  civic  society,  the 
State,  is  constantly  differentiating  into  more  and  more  associa- 
tions. Thereby  the  interests  of  the  individual  members,  and 
those  of  the  whole  society,  are  both  accommodated  to  each 
other  and  adjusted  to  the  prevailing  conditions  of  life. 

^  Tarde's  repudiation  of  the  organic  analogy,  and  his  announcement  in  the 
next  breath  that  society  is  not  like  an  organism,  but  like  a  brain,  shows  that  he 
misunderstood  either  the  organic  analogy,  or  the  brain,  or  both.  {La  logique 
sociatc,  pp.   127   ff.) 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS  229 

States  remain  relatively  simple  so  long  as  the  groupings 
which  they  contain  are  not  stimulated  to  competition  and  strife. 
Whatever  the  origin  of  civic  organization,  whether  through 
common  consciousness  of  the  need  of  leadership,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Israelites  submitting  to  the  dictatorship  of  Moses,  and 
later  transforming  the  status  of  his  successors  into  kingship; 
or  through  conquest;  there  may  be  but  two  visible  elements  in 
the  State,  the  government  and  the  governed!  In  the  former 
instance  the  hostility  latent  in  various  inchoate  groups  may  not 
be  sufficiently  developed  to  produce  political  action  and  reaction 
in  any  marked  degree.  The  people  may  be  homogeneous,  and 
there  is  a  minimum  of  occasion  for  strife  and  consequent 
inequality.  In  the  latter  case  the  subjugated  stratum  cannot 
make  its  particular  interests  effective.  It  is  practically  a  tool 
of  the  other  stratum.  The  stratum  wielding  the  sovereign 
power  is  supreme  and  absolute.  Interests  that  make  against 
those  of  the  rulers  exist  in  such  States  just  as  really  as  in  a 
democracy  —  for  example,  the  interests  of  the  Jews  in  Russia 
today,  or  of  the  Christians  in  the  Roman  Empire  before 
Constantine.  In  the  former  case,  complexity  of  political  life 
develops  only  from  within,  unless  there  are  foreign  compli- 
cations. In  the  latter  case,  political  complexity  can  develop 
from  within  only  by  some  reinforcement  of  latent  antitheses 
from  without. 

As  an  instance  of  the  promotion  of  political  action  that 
presently  complicates  the  social  process  within  the  State,  we 
may  cite  the  assimilation  of  alien  elements.  When  a  third 
element  is  added  to  the  original  strata,  rulers  and  ruled,  the 
latter  begin  to  find  ways  of  making  the  new  element  useful  in 
asserting  their  repressed  interests.^  )If  a  State  has  absorbed 
alien  populations,  the  citizen  element  may  turn  the  new  sub- 
jects to  advantage  by  giving  themselves  certain  privileges  of 
political  or  economic  or  strictly  social  precedence,  by  such  dis- 
abilities as  those  in  force  today  in  Russia,  for  instance,  against 

•A  case  of  the  social  "form"  tertius  gaudens ;  of.  Simmel,  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  VII,  pp.  174  ff. 


2J0  GENER-\L  SOCIOLOGY 

Jews.  Thus  a  middle  stratum  comes  into  existence.  It  is  a 
means  of  keeping  up  a  sort  of  social  seething ;  as  in  the  case  of 
the  plebs  at  Rome.^ 

It  must  be  understood  that  we  are  not  attempting  to  specify 
the  precise  steps  that  occur  in  the  differentiation  of  interests  in 
all  States.  That  will  not  be  done  with  resj>ectable  authority 
until  much  more  highly  developed  qualitative  analysis  of  the 
social  process  shall  have  been  followed  by  a  t%-pe  of  historical 
research  not  yet  developed;  viz.,  a  quantitative  analysis  of  the 
process  at  successive  periods  in  the  development  of  States.  It 
is  possible  merely  to  indicate  generic  forms  of  reaction  within 
States.  These  appear  in  specific  variations  according  to  the 
circumstances  of  each  State.  Thus,  one  of  the  characteristic 
tendencies  of  the  governing  class  in  States  founded  by  con- 
quest is  to  set  themselves  with  all  possible  vigor  against  social 
differentiation,  and  especially  against  the  formation  of  a  middle 
class.  The  like  is  true  of  ruling  classes  founded  on  industrial 
or  commercial  supremacy  in  modem  England,  France,  and 
America,  not  less  than  of  classes  founded  on  militar\'  conquest 
in  the  ancient  world.  The  long  judicial  and  parliamentary 
struggles  in  England  against  the  growth  of  trade  unions,  and 
against  reform  of  the  franchise,  are  in  point.  So  long  as  the 
differentiation  in  a  State  is  merely  the  survival  of  the  relation 
of  conquerors  and  conquered  out  of  which  that  State  arose, 
social  stratification  is  virtually  as  much  a  matter  of  course  as 
that  on  the  basis  of  sex  in  the  primitive  tribe.  Thus  the 
Ostrogoths  in  the  realm  of  Theodorich  ('493-526)  were 
sharply  separated  from  the  subjugated  inhabitants  of  Italy.  In 
like  fashion  the  Xorman  conquerors  of  the  Anglo-Saxons 
tenaciously  maintained  their  racial  distinction.  \\'ith  lapse  of 
time  that  sepa^^ateness  ceases  to  be  possible,  especially  when  the 
races  in  a  State  have  become  numerous. 

We  accordingly  find  in  the  oldest  States  of  which  we  have 
records,  even  after  they  have,  by  conquest  and  extension  of 
territories,  become  a  mixture  of  many  races,  the  endeavor  to 

*  Ratzenhofer,  Sociohgische  Erkenntniss,  p.   io6. 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS  231 

petrify  the  social  condition  —  that  is,  to  fix  for  all  time  the 
status  of  superiority  and  subordination  which  conquest  pro- 
duced. In  other  words,  we  find  in  these  cases  determined 
efforts,  both  instinctive  and  deliberate,  to  arrest  the  natural 
social  movement  which  the  unfettered  action  of  interests  — 
social  in  the  special  sense,  racial,  economic,  religious,  scientific, 
in  all  variations  —  constantly  promotes.  Every  new  group  of 
population  has  to  take  a  dependent  and  subordinate  place  in  the 
settled  order,  unless  it  is  strong  enough  to  be  itself  the  sub- 
jugator of  the  older  groups.  This  is  the  essential  history  of 
the  caste  system  in  Egypt  and  India.  This  intrenchment  of 
the  military  stratification  within  impossible  barriers  of  tradition 
prevents  the  subjugated  groups  from  making  themselves  felt  as 
factors  in  social  struggle.  It  thereby  prevents  the  social  order 
from  becoming  flexible  'as  a  result  of  natural  play  of  interests. 
In  general,  the  despotic  State,  true  to  its  subjugating  instincts, 
uses  every  means  to  make  its  original  form  permanent.  To  the 
dominant  element  this  seems  to  be  the  only  way  of  securing 
what  is  held  to  be  the  foundation  of  social  weal.  The  world 
over,  those  who  have  power  imagine  that  retention  of  power 
by  their  class  is  necessary  to  the  stability  of  society  in  general. 
The  only  decency  and  order  which  the  despots  can  imagine  for 
society  is  a  state  of  things  in  which  people  of  their  kind  hold 
sway. 

While  this  principle  must  be  expressed  in  modified  forms, 
the  farther  we  get  removed  from  the  condition  of  subjugation 
by  violence,  the  course  of  history  up  to  the  present  scarcely 
leaves  the  principle  for  a  moment  without  witnesses.  The 
classes  that  have  power  are  always  trying  to  prevent  other 
classes  from  getting  power.  This  is  as  true  of  a  Holy  Synod 
as  of  robber  barons  or  Persian  despots.  The  politically  influ- 
ential rack  their  brains  to  prevent  other  classes  from  sharing 
their  influence.  Just  as  the  caste  system  was  resorted  to  in  the 
Orient  for  this  purpose,  so  in  the  Occident  the  "Optimates," 
the  "  Patricians,"  and  the  feudal  nobility  had  the  same  mean- 
ing as  buttresses  of  the  existing  order.     "Divide  and  control," 


232  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

divide  et  impcra,  is  not  a  principle  which  the  Romans  invented. 
It  is  the  obvious  dictate  of  the  typical  military  State.  It 
expresses  the  natural  spirit  and  policy  of  such  a  State.  The 
policy  cannot  be  entirely  abandoned  without  surrendering  such 
a  State  to  subversion  by  elements  presumed  to  be  unworthy  of 
social  eminence.^*^ 

In  primitive  agricultural  populations,  and  under  the  patri- 
archal form  of  society,  there  is  little  need  of  placing  limits  upon 
the  freedom  of  the  individual  to  work  out  his  salvation  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  of  his  own  powers.  When  a  State  organi- 
zation is  to  be  maintained,  and  when  the  incursions  of  nomads 
are  to  be  repelled,  then  public  policy  calls  for  political  restraints 
upon  the  independence  of  individuals.  Civic  society  necessi- 
tates to  some  extent  surrender  of  pursuit  of  individual  ends, 
and  of  freedom  to  form  separatistic  groups.  The  individual 
must  bear  the  yoke  of  common  necessity.  In  other  words,  the 
order  of  the  State  as  a  whole  is  always  maintained  at  a  certain 
cost  of  self-surrender  on  the  part  of  the  individual.^ 

This  program  of  collision  between  the  powers  that  be,  and 
the  social  elements  that  scarcely  have  recognized  being  or 
power,  may  be  traced,  in  other  forms,  in  the  most  advanced 
societies.  The  third  estate  in  France,  before  the  Revolution, 
had  interests  as  distinct  from  those  of  king  and  nobility  and 
clergy  as  though  it  had  been  made  up  of  an  alien  race,  and  had 
been  enslaved  as  a  result  of  conquest.  King,  nobles,  and  clergy, 
on  the  other  hand,  just  as  is  the  case  today  in  Russia,  were 
spurred,  both  by  counter-interest  and  by  sincere  prejudice  of 
political  necessity,  to  prevent  the  third  estate  from  exercising 
distinct  political  influence.  We  have  seen  the  same  assertion 
of  political  right,  on  the  one  hand,  and  repression  of  the  asser- 
tion, on  the  other,  in  the  case  of  the  three  great  campaigns  for 
extension  of  the  suffrage  in  England  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  same  struggle,  in  principle,  is  still  in  progress  there  on  a 

"  An  ex  parte  statement  of  a  situation  alleged  to  be  similar  in  principle  is 
contained  in  a  paper  on  the  English  Educational  Rill,  by  William  T.  Stead,  in 
the  Independent,  October  30,  1902,  pp.  2575-77.  The  claim  is  that  the  dominant 
class  does  not  want  the  masses  educated. 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS  233 

different  level.  While  in  politics  there  is  practically  manhood 
suffrage  in  England,  social  suffrage  is  far  from  equal  emancipa- 
tion. The  ranks  of  the  social  hierarchy,  from  navvy  to  noble, 
are  almost  as  distinct,  if  not  quite  as  final,  as  they  were  five 
hundred  years  ago. 

In  the  United  States  we  have  the  same  antagonism  of  forces 
rallying  about  different  interests.  With  approximate  abolition 
of  political  classes,  we  have  economic  strata  that  use  both 
economic  and  political  means  of  conflict.  The  managing  class 
is  suspicious  of  the  fitness  of  the  many  to  share  in  political  and 
industrial  management.  Our  political  campaigns  are  becoming 
more  and  more  trials  of  skill  between  men,  on  the  one  hand, 
who  have  the  confidence  of  successful  business  organizers,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  men  who  are  attempting  to  organize  the 
fears  and  the  jealousies  of  those  who  distrust  the  political 
integrity  and  ability  of  the  economically  successful  classes.^ ^ 

Two  general  propositions  are  pertinent  with  reference  to 
the  whole  subject  of  the  differentiation  of  interests  within 
States :  / 

1.  The  various  institutioris,  political,  ecclesiastical,  profes-^ 
sional,  industrial,  etc.,  including  the  government,  are  devices, 
means,  gradually  brought  into  existence  to  serve  interests  that 
develop  within  the  State. 

2.  Each  of  these  devices,  and  even  their  accidental  varia- 

"  As  we  have  said  more  than  once,  the  data  for  description  of  the  actual 
steps  by  which  political  antitheses,  and  thus  the  factors  of  differentiation  and 
strife  within  States,  have  come  into  existence,  are  not  yet  available  to  any 
adequate  extent.  The  fact  of  social  differentiation,  and  the  varieties  of  insti- 
tutions developed,  partly  before  and  partly  after  the  beginning  of  the  civic  stage 
of  the  social  process,  appear  in  Spencer's  Principles  of  Sociology,  under  the 
titles :  Part  V,  "  Political  Institutions  ;  "  Part  VI,  "  Ecclesiastical  Institu- 
tions ; "  Part  VII,  "  Professional  Institutions ;  "  Part  VIII,  "  Industrial 
Institutions."  Those  parts  of  his  work  are  pertinent  at  this  poinf,  but  with 
this  reservation,  as  we  have  virtually  said  in  Parts  II  and  III :  Spencer  does 
not  successfully  transfer  attention  from  institutions  in  the  structural  phase  to 
their  functional  character,  not  to  speak  of  their  teleological  value.  Function 
itself,  under  Spencer's  treatment,  still  seems  like  a  machine  at  rest,  not  doing 
its  work.  Function  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  fiction  hanging  around  the  structure 
of  these  institutions,  but  its  reality  is  not  impressive. 


234  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

tions  and  subordinate  parts,  are  likely  to  be  transformed,  in  the 
minds  of  the  persons  who  get  their  status  in  society  by  working 
with  them,  into  ends,  to  be  cherished  and  defended  and  per- 
petuated on  their  ozvn  account.  Instead  of  standing  on  their 
merits,  as  agencies  for  accomplishing  needed  work,  and  use- 
less when  they  no  longer  do  the  work,  or  when  the  demand  for 
that  sort  of  work  no  longer  exists,  they  acquire  a  certain 
sacredness  of  their  own,  which  obscures  their  real  character  as 
means.  It  follows  that  the  persons  who  get  their  living  as  the 
functionaries  of  these  institutions  come  to  have  the  same  atti- 
tude toward  persons  who  would  judge  the  institutions  by  their 
social  utility,  that  two  alien  races  have  toward  each  other  when 
one  is  ruler  and  the  other  subject  within  the  State.  In  other 
words,  social  institutions  always  tend  to  become  causes  of  the 
same  kind  of  social  strife  which  in  an  earlier  stage  of  the 
process  they  were  developed  to  prevent. 

Accordingly,  it  makes  no  difference  how  minutely  we  ana- 
lyze mere  institutions,  or  mere  activities,  within  the  State.  If 
we  go  no  farther,  we  may  not  be  within  striking  distance  of  the 
real  process  carried  on  by  those  activities.  For  example,  the 
familiar  schedule  of  social  phenomena,  by  De  Greef,^^  is  a  very 
useful  chart  of  activities,  and  it  corresponds  in  general  with  the 
traditional  divisions  of  the  social  sciences.  For  certain  pur- 
poses such  divisions  are  sufficient.  If,  however,  we  want  to 
answer  the  principal  questions  that  pertain  to  the  social  process, 
these  schedules  prove  to  be  merely  the  binding-twine  of  the 
social  reality.  They  are  utterly  external.  We  want  to  find  out 
what  are  the  deep  undercurrents  of  energy  in  all  association. 
We  find  that  those  undercurrents  apparently  flow  with  incon- 
stant form,  force,  and  direction  through  all  these  activities.  At 
the  moment  of  this  discovery  our  relation  to  the  traditional  divi- 
sions of  social  analysis  is  precisely  parallel  with  that  in  which  a 
student  of  human  physiology  would  be  when  he  had  just  begun 
to  realize  that  it  does  not  avail  very  much,  in  the  way  of  under- 
standing the  vital  processes,  to  divide  the  body    into    head, 

"  Vide  p.  235.     Cf.  Introduction  d  ta  sociologic.  Vol.  I,  p.  200. 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS 


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236  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

trunk,  and  limbs.  He  does  not  get  his  physiological  problems 
fairly  presented  until  he  discovers  that  head,  trunk,  and  limbs 
are  alike  collections  of  activities  shared  by  a  nutritive  system,  a 
circulating  system,  a  nervous  system,  an  osseous  system,  and  a 
muscular  system.  This  discovery  does  not  rule  head,  trunk, 
and  limbs  out  of  existence.  It  relegates  them  to  a  rank  of 
minor  importance  for  the  physiologists'  purposes. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  divisions  which  De  Greef  uses  are 
quite  parallel  with  the  physiological  division  of  organisms 
into  functional  systems.  To  a  certain  extent  this  is  true ;  but 
in  a  deeper  sense,  and  from  the  sociological  center  of  attention, 
it  is  not  true.  The  divisions  of  phenomena  presented  by 
De  Greef  are  essentially  structural,  not  functional.  ^  All  divi- 
sions of  associational  activities  which  are  not  based  upon 
teleological  criteria  must  for  that  reason  be  essentially  struc- 
tural. The  sociologist  is  after  the  telic  meaning  of  all  social 
factors.  Their  phenomenal  groupings  must,  of  course,  be 
understood;  but  this  is  merely  preliminary  to  discovery  of 
functional  and  telic  relations.  We  are  at  present  calling  atten- 
tion to  facts  of  differentiation  within  nations  in  order  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  the  more  vital  matter,  viz.,  the  differentiation 
and  the  correlation  of  purposes  within  national  groups.  It 
cannot  be  repeated  too  often  that  the  industrial  system,  and  the 
domestic  organization,  and  the  state  of  the  arts,  and  the 
development  of  science,  and  the  perfecting  of  government,  and 
the  adoption  of  moral  standards,  are  merely  incidents  in  the 
process  of  realizing  the  essential  human  interests.  At  any 
selected  moment  the  facts  in  either  of  these  divisions  of 
activity  may  be  relatively  obstructive  of  that  process.  To 
know  whether  the  concrete  facts  are  positive  or  negative  factors 
in  the  human  process,  at  a  particular  date  or  point,  we  have 
to  find  how  to  advance  upon  the  mechanical,  structural  concep- 
tion of  human  activities,  and  how  to  add  a  sufficient  functional 
and  teleological  interpretation  of  the  involved  process.  Resum- 
ing  our    analysis    of    antagonism    between    interests    within 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS  237 

nations,  we  encounter  what  Ratzenhofer  calls  the  political 
principles}^ 

Perhaps  the  precise  force  of  the  term  in  this  connection 
would  be  better  conveyed  if  we  said  that  the  phenomena  of 
opposition  between  the  groups  differentiated  in  the  State  dis- 
play the  counter-tendencies  at  work  in  the  social  process,  and 
the  various  gradations  of  those  tendencies.  Adopting  Ratzen- 
hofer's  term  principle,  let  us  bear  in  mind  that  it  would  not  be 
far  away  from  the  sense  of  the  word  if  we  used  the  less  techni- 
cal term  tendency.  At  all  events,  we  are  now  face  to  face  with 
the  primary  opposition  of  social  forces  as  they  display  them- 
selves within  States. 

On  the  one  hand,  we  have  the  stereotyping  principle.  We 
are  now  merely  giving  a  name  to  the  tendency  which  we  have 
already  described  in  action.  I  This  .principle  operates  in  the 
direction  of  retaining  the  social  situation  in  statu  quo.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  have  the  antithetical  innoziating  principle.  Its 
tendency  is  to  resolve  one  social  balance  into  another,  or  at  least 
to  break  up  a  social  situation.  Strictly  analyzed,  there  is  noth- 
ing immediately  visible  in  the  operation  of  these  two  prin- 
ciples which  entitles  the  one  to  a  moral  precedence  over  the 
other.  Each  is  primarily  the  energy  of  a  portion  of  the  nation 
which  has  interests  opposed  to  those  of  other  portions.  In  the 
sense  in  which  we  are  obliged  to  use  the  terms  at  this  stage,  it 
by  no  means  follows  that  the  stereotyping  is  the  undesirable 
force,  and  the  innovating  the  desirable  one.  Which  is  which 
is  in  each  case  a  question  of  fact,  to  be  determined  by  the  scale 
of  social  purposes,  and  the  relation  of  the  principles  respectively 
to  those  purposes  in  the  given  case. 

It  is  conceivable  that,  in  a  given  social  situation,  the  stereo- 
typing factor  might  turn  out  to  represent  the  program  that  in 
the  end  would  be  best  for  society.  Meanwhile,  for  the  purposes 
of  description  within  the  field  of  social  dynamics,  the  force  that 
makes  for  rest  within  the  situation  must  be  called  stereotyping, 

^^  Sociologische  Erkenntniss,  p.  167,  and  more  fully  in  Wesen  und  Zweck, 
Vol.  I,  p.   146.     Cf.  below,  pp.  287,  288. 


238  -  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

while  that  which  makes  for  disturbance  or  modification  of  the 
situation  must  be  called  innovating. 

Going  back  to  primitive  conditions,  we  find  at  first,  as  the 
most  evident  impulses,  blood-relationship,  hunger,  and  sex. 
When  we  observe  society  developed  into  the  stage  of  civic 
organization,  however,  we  find  these  primitive  impulses  sub- 
jected to  the  limitations  of  the  new  environment.  (The  State 
is  consequently  the  expression  of  the  social  need  of  composing 
the  antagonistic  principles  by  means  of  mutual  concession. 
That  is,  the  opposing  interests  must,  to  a  certain  extent,  practice 
self-denial  in  order  to  exist  in  the  same  State.  This  restraint 
upon  the  absolute  assertion  of  each  one's  interest  is  the  phase  of 
the  social  process  next  in  order  after  the  opposition  of  interests 
which  precedes  the  legal  State, 

In  our  description  of  the  social  process  up  to,  and  including, 
the  formation  of  the  State  we  saw  that  at  first  this  restraint  or 
self-denial  has  to  reach  the  extreme  of  self-effacement  in  the 
case  of  the  conquered  people.  The  interests  which  the  victors 
overpower  have  to  be  swallowed  up  in  the  interests  of  the  con- 
querors. ^  Another  stage  in  social  differentiation  is  reached 
when  this  absolute  absorption  of  one  interest  by  another  is  fol- 
lowed by  a  condition  in  which  such  absorption  is  only  relative.  \ 
Thus  between  savages  of  the  lowest  order  there  was  no  com- 
promise until  the  one  tribe  had  eaten  the  other.  An  advance 
in  the  social  process  is  marked  by  so  much  of  restraint  on  the 
part  of  both  victors  and  vanquished  as  permits  the  acceptance 
of  mastery  and  slavery  as  the  triumph  of  one  interest  over  the 
other,  with  minimum  concession  to  the  weaker  interest.  Still 
later,  the  dominant  race,  say  Romans,  retain  claims  of  tribute 
from  defeated  and  absorbed  States,  without  subjecting  the 
conquered  citizens  to  personal  slavery.  Later  still,  as  in 
mediaeval  and  modern  aristocracies,  privileges  are  secured  by 
law  to  certain  classes,  while  corresponding  burdens  are  bound 
by  law  upon  the  shoulders  of  other  classes.  In  either  case  the 
process  is  that  of  accommodating  interest  to  interest  through 
total  or  partial  expression,  on  the  one  hand,  and  repression,  on 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS  239 

the  other.  As  the  State  becomes  more  permanent  in  form  and 
spirit,  the  process  approaches  universal  restraint  of  each  inter- 
est within  the  Hmits  decreed  by  the  aggregate  of  interests. 

There  is  a  social  function,  which  we  need  not  discuss  here, 
that  in  its  own  way  accomplishes  something  like  the  work  of 
the  director  of  an  orchestra.  Each  instrument  has  its  own 
note,  and  each,  without  direction,  tends  to  confuse,  and  perhaps 
to  drown,  the  other  notes.  The  leader  not  merely  keeps  the 
instruments  in  time,  but  he  modulates  the  force  of  the  dififerent 
notes,  so  that  each  falls  into  its  proper  proportion  in  the  whole 
tone  scheme. 

The  State  accordingly  becomes  a  moral  institution.  It  is 
an  ethical  effect  or  deposit  of  the  social  process.  From  the 
present  point  of  view,  the  establishment  of  a  State,  whether 
it  has  a  modern  written  constitution,  or  the  older  and  more 
common  constitution,  consisting  of  customary  and  recognized 
order,  means  substantially  this :  There  has  previously  been 
play  of  individual  and  group  interests,  either  unregulated,  or 
from  the  current  point  of  viezv  less  appropriately  regulated. 
These  interests  are  now  brought  together  under  a  common  or 
improved  order,  in  which  each  restrains  itself  somewhat,  in 
obedience  to  the  general  interests  of  the  community. 

From  this  same  point  of  view,  we  may  also  interpret  the 
constant  action  and  reaction  between  the  two  social  tendencies 
just  scheduled;  viz.:  it  is  a  conflict  for  adjustment  between 
the  forces  of  social  innovation,  on  the  one  hand  —  forces  which 
instinctively  resist  the  dominance  of  the  existing  order;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  social  necessity  of  preserving  the 
national  interests  from  evaporating  in  the  partial  interests  of 
individuals. 

Perhaps  no  clearer  case  is  familiar  to  Americans  than  that 
of  our  own  Federal  Union,  which  was  the  final  compromise 
between  the  almost  irreconcilable  interests  of  sectionalism,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  nationalism,  on  the  other.  To  be  sure, 
Federalism  was  in  this  case  the  innovating  principle,  but  in 
effect  it  illustrated  the  group  interest  in  contrast  with  special 


240  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

interests.  What  was  apparent  in  this  case  on  a  somewhat 
extended  scale  is  the  fact  in  every  nation.  There  could  be  no 
civic  society  in  advance  of  anarchy,  if  it  did  not  come  into 
existence,  and  stay  in  existence,  by  virtue  of  restraint  upon 
interests  which  would  destroy  each  other,  if  not  restrained. 
(  Civic  society  is  practical  agreement  of  many  interests  not  to 
assert  their  claim  to  the  full,  and  it  is,  beyond  this,  practical 
agreement  of  each  of  the  interests  to  contribute  something 
toward  enforcing  the  claims  of  the  aggregate  interests.  Phillips 
Brooks  once  said:  "No  man  has  a  right  to  all  of  his  rights." 
The  theorem  sums  up  a  whole  social  philosophy.) 

We  may  summarize  the  facts  in  another  form  in  this  way : 
The  evolution  of  a  State  out  of  the  primitive  spontaneous  social 
process  results,  in  the  first  instance,  in  a  rigid  adjustment  of 
persons  to  a  scheme  of  subordination.  The  State  is,  in  one 
view,  a  piece  of  machinery  produced  by  the  social  process,  but 
the  justification  for  its  existence  is  its  continued  furtherance  of 
the  process.  The  immediate  tendency,  however,  always  is  for 
the  machinery  of  the  State  to  rust  in  its  bearings,  so  that  it 
becomes  an  effective  arrest  of  the  process.  In  order  to  promote 
the  process,  it  is  necessary  for  the  same  social  forces  which 
produced  the  State  to  co-operate  further  in  keeping  the  State 
flexible,  so  that  it  may  continue  to  be  serviceable.  Otherwise 
the  State  becomes  the  terminus  of  the  social  process,  instead 
of  a  term  in  its  evolution.  The  forces  that  have  produced  the 
State  are,  on  the  one  hand,  the  interests  of  individuals ;  on 
the  other  hand,  the  conflict  of  interests  between  individuals 
who  cannot  see  that  their  interests  coincide. 

We  have  thus  drawn  the  main  lines  of  the  social  process 
within  the  State.  The  State  never  is,  but  is  always  becoming. 
This  is  true  because  the  persons  composing  the  State  never  are, 
but  are  always  becoming.  "  A  process  is  going  on,"  is  our 
most  general  way  of  telling  the  essential  truth  about  a  person 
or  a  society. 

This  social  process  is  an  incessant  dialectic  of  interest,  of 
function,  and  of  structure.    Interests  in  individuals  start  activi- 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  IN  CIVIC  GROUPS  241 

ties  in  which  individuals  colHde  with  each  other.  These  con- 
tacts necessarily  tend  into  a  certain  form  of  arrangement  of 
contact  and  reaction.  This  form  of  the  process  tends  to  become 
fixed  in  structure  or  status  of  the  persons  who  carry  on  the 
activities  involved.  Yet  this  tendency  to  rest  is  never  absolute. 
It  becomes  in  turn  a  stimulus  of  new  motion  in  the  group.  That 
is,  as  some  of  the  persons  in  the  group  see  their  own  interests, 
this  stationary  condition  of  the  group  is  desirable.  As  other 
members  of  the  group  see  their  own  interests,  this  crystalliza- 
tion of  the  group  in  a  permanent  form  is  intolerable.  Thence- 
forth, the  molecular  motions  in  the  group  begin  to  take  new 
directions.  Some  of  the  persons  are  trying  to  preserve  all  of 
the  old  structure  that  they  can.  Others  are  trying  to  get  for 
their  interests  all  of  a  new  structure  that  they  can.  Here  is  a 
social  antithesis  which  presently  becomes  visible  in  a  somewhat 
modified  social  structure,  around  which  a  later-born  conserva- 
tism rallies,  and  against  which  a  freshly  provoked  interest  in 
innovation  revolts.  So  the  differentiating  rhythm  go€S  on. 
Interest  and  function  and  structure  are  constantly  recreating 
each  other  in  new  forms.  The  State  grows  from  the  com- 
pound to  the  doubly,  the  trebly,  and  the  wthly  compound  differ- 
entiation of  the  interests  and  functions  and  structures  of  which 
the  individuals  composing  the  State  are  the  units.  ;  The  social 
process  of  which  the  State  is  both  the  product  and  the  condi- 
tion always  goes  forward  through  the  reaction  of  the  variable 
forces  which  these  social  combinations  represent. 

Our  analysis  must  accordingly  proceed  to  examine  more 
in  detail  these  reactions  between  the  alternative  social  prin- 
ciples. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  LATENT  ANTAGONISMS  IN  STATES ' 

From  the  point  of  view  which  we  have  now  reached  it  is 
possible  to  sum  up  in  a  single  convenient  conception  the  whole 
process  which  the  State  includes.  It  will  epitomize  for  us  all 
that  we  have  now  to  examine  in  detail.  It  will,  at  the  same 
time,  do  not  a  little  toward  rational  interpretation  of  the  details. 

In  a  word,  the  zvhole  social  process  is  a  perpetual  reaction 
between  interests  that  have  their  lodgment  in  the  individuals 
who  compose  society.  This  reaction  is,  more  specifically,  in 
the  first  instance,  disguised  or  open  struggle  between  the  indi- 
viduals. The  State  itself  is  the  expression  of  a  somewhat 
highly  differentiated  interest,  which  becomes  operative  sooner 
or  later  in  the  social  process;  viz.,  the  interest  of  the  indi- 
viduals composing  a  relatively  distinct  section  of  society  in 
having  the  struggle  of  interests  within  the  range  of  their  asso- 
ciation go  on  under  the  limitations  of  certain  positive  rules. 
Whatever  else  the  State  may  or  may  not  do,  this  at  least  is 
its  constant  role,  viz. :  The  State  always  brings  to  bear  upon 
the  individuals  composing  it  a  certain  power  of  constraint  to 
secure  from  them,  in  all  their  struggles  with  each  other,  the 
observance  of  minimum  established  limits  of  struggle.  This 
is  not  a  hypothetical  statement  of  what  the  State  might,  could, 
would,  or  should  do.  It  is  a  literal  generalization  of  what 
every  State  actually  does.  It  is  an  objective  statement  of  a 
cardinal  fact  in  the  social  process. 

From  this  primary  fact  another  follows ;  not  logically,  but 
as  actual  matter  of  experience ;  viz. :  States  from  first  to  last 
represent  different  orders  of  instincts  or  ideas  about  the  proper 
scope  and  methods  of  civic  constraint.  We  might  select  at 
random,  provided  only  that  we  were  familiar  with  the  distinc- 

*  Ratzenhofer,  Wesen  und  Zwcck,  sec.  17. 

242 


THE  LATENT  ANTAGONISMS  IN  STATES  243 

tive  civic  tradition  of  the  States  chosen  for  illustration,  and  it 
would  prove  that,  whereas  the  essential  purposes  and  forms  of 
State  action  are  one  and  the  same  everywhere,  the  ideas  or 
feelings  that  diversify  those  forms  and  methods  are  never  in 
two  States  identical.  Between  two  such  States  as  Turkey  and 
Great  Britain,  or  Russia  and  France,  the  fact  is  obvious,  even 
to  those  who  could  specify  only  the  most  notorious  particulars. 
.  Even  between  two  such  apparently  similar  States  as  Germany 
and  Austria-Hungary,  or  Italy  and  Spain,  or  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  however,  the  same  fact  might  be  shown 
without  difficulty.  One  people  has  a  slightly  different  history; 
a  slightly  different  moral,  political,  economic,  and  religious 
tradition;  a  slightly  different  social  situation.  The  stress  of 
interests  in  the  one  takes  a  slightly  different  tone  from  that  in 
the  other.  The  civic  constraint  in  the  one  consequently  differs 
from  that  in  the  other  by  degrees  which  ordinary  observation 
would  not  detect.  For  instance,  in  Russia  and  in  Germany 
it  accords  with  the  general  ideas  of  decency  and  order  that  the 
government  shall  require  all  citizens  to  attach  themselves  to 
some  recognized  religious  body,  in  order  to  become  eligible  to 
certain  civic  positions.  In  France  such  State  requirement  of 
religion  is  at  present  out  of  the  question.  In  England  an 
income  tax  is  accepted  as  matter  of  course.  In  the  United 
States  it  is  regarded  as  an  infringement  upon  the  rights  of 
private  property.  Thus  two  States  of  the  more  primitive  and 
the  more  modern  type  respectively  may  have  little  more  in 
common  than  the  identical  wish  to  gain  protection  of  their 
peculiar  interests  through  civic  control.  The  master-key  to  the 
occurrences  which  take  place  in  all  States,  throughout  their 
development,  is  the  perception  that,v  whatever  the  incidents  of 
political  struggle  in  any  case,  the  one  constant  factor  is  the 
civic  organization  attempting,  in  one  way  or  another,  to  guard 
the  interests  of  the  individuals  and  groups  of  which  the  State 
is  composed,  by  constraint  appropriate  to  the  needs  of  the 
situation. 

In  other  words,  the  State,  the  national  group  organized  as 


244  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

a  unity,  is  a  certain  implicit  conception,  idea,  purpose,  conscious 
in  certain  persons,  and  committed  at  all  hazards  to  self- 
assertion.  The  State  is  a  certain  vague  or  definite  theorem  to 
be  maintained.  It  is  a  body  of  interests  to  be  guarded.  It  is 
a  claim,  to  be  defended  against  all  comers.  Whatever  else 
happens,  that  body  of  purpose  with  reference  to  fundamental 
general  order  which  the  State  incarnates  must  be  carried  out. 
It  must  succeed.  It  must  prevail  over  every  possible  opposi- 
tion. Here,  then,  is  not  the  old  '*  absolute  hostility  "  which  we 
found  in  the  case  of  individual  interests,  abstractly  considered. 
There  is  rather  relative  hostility;  or,  viewed  from  the  other 
direction,  relative  sociability.  That  is,  some  of  the  interests 
of  all  the  persons  are  merged  in  this  common  organization,  the 
State,  j  Something  that  is  common  to  all  the  persons  projects 
this  organization  into  being.  The  persons  cannot  now  be  abso- 
lutely hostile  to  each  other  without  warring  each  against  a  part 
of  himself.  In  spite  of  a  certain  degree  of  this  always-present 
"  war  in  the  members,"  the  very  nature  of  the  State  makes  the 
submission  of  the  individual  a  foregone  conclusion,  He  must 
bend  or  break.  To  that  extent  the  State,  which  is  essentially, 
and  more  and  more  in  realization,  the  visualized  assertion  of 
its  members'  interests,  is  from  the  start  and  always  the  avozved 
and  uncompromising  opponent  of  every  member  of  the  State.^ 
As  the  interests  common  to  all  the  persons  are  at  the  start 
in  a  small  ratio,  numerically,  to  the  interests  in  which  no  com- 
mon element  appears,  the  civic  condition  necessarily  presents, 
from  the  beginning,  the  aspect  of  struggle.  Implicitly  all  are 
groping  after  a  condition  in  which  all  will  be  ruled  by  the  inter- 
ests of  all.  In  each  person's  feelings,  however,  his  own  inter- 
ests may  loom  up  into  a  degree  of  importance  altogether  out 
of  proportion  to  that  which  they  have  in  any  other  person's 
estimate,  and  still  more  out  of  proportion  to  their  actual  ratio 

'  The  sense  in  which  the  term  "  State  "  is  used  in  this  argument  should  be 
kept  in  mind.  Cf.  pp.  226  and  292.  It  does  not  mean  government,  as  contrasted 
with  the  governed.  It  means  "  organized  civic  unity,"  with  government  as  one 
of  the  factors  of  the  unity. 


THE  LATENT  ANTAGONISMS  IN  STATES  245 

with  the  total  interests  of  the  nation.  There  is  no  scale  of 
weights  and  measures  to  harmonize  these  conflicting  estimates 
of  interests,  except  the  naive  gage  of  battle  between  the  inter- 
ests. They  hav6  to  test  brute  strength  for  a  long  while,  as  the 
only  means  of  taking  each  other's  measure.  Public  interest, 
a  certain  minimum  demand  for  order,  is  one  party,  and  each 
individual  in  the  State  may  at  any  time  be  the  other  party.\ 
By  virtue  of  combinations,  always  stronger  than  individuals, 
the  modicum  of  common  interest  intrenches  itself  more  and 
more  firmly,  while  the  quantum  of  common  interest  mean- 
while increases.  Throughout  this  process,  the  State  is  becoming 
more  and  more  necessary  to  the  typical  individual,  but  at  the 
same  time  more  and  more  antipathetic  to  everything  in  the  indi- 
vidual in  proportion  as  it  conflicts  with  the  typical.  Here,  then, 
we  have  the  conditions  of  the  irrepressible  conflict  which  the 
State  does  not  originate,  but  by  means  of  which  the  State  car- 
ries on  the  social  process.  National  life  is  conflict,  hut  it  is 
conflict  converging  toivard  minimum  conflict,  and  maximum 
co-operation  and  sociability. 

The  elementary  interest  of  a  State,  as  we  have  already 
virtually  said,  is  the  development  of  its  corporate  individuality.^ 
Probably  no  better  example  is  on  record  than  that  of  the 
American  State  at  the  close  of  the  War  of  Independence.  It  is 
begging  a  mooted  question  in  political  philosophy,  of  course, 
to  assume  that  there  was  an  American  State  at  that  precise 
time.  It  would  also  take  us  too  far  afield  if  we  should  attempt 
to  settle  the  question,  in  passing,  what  constituted  the  corporate 
individuality  of  the  actual  or  potential  American  State  in  1776 
or  1783.  For  the  sake  of  concreteness,  we  may  let  the  two 
unquestioned  elements  of  the  incipient  State-personality  repre- 
sent all.  The  implicit  common  interest  in  America  was,  first, 
independence  of  Europe;  second,  co-operation  at  home.  Yet 
there  were  a  thousand  partial  interests  which  stimulated  indi- 
viduals and  groups  to  ignore  or  challenge  or  defy  these  com- 
mon interests.     American  independence  and  co-operation  were 

'  Ratzenhofer,  Wesen  und  Zweck,  Vol.  I,  p.  160. 


246  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

thus  committed  to  a  war  of  subjugation  against  these  partial 
interests. 

Of  course,  it  savors  of  metaphysics  and  pure  fancifuHsm 
to  express  the  facts  in  this  way,  as  though  American  "  inde- 
pendence "  and  American  "  co-operation  "  were  physical  enti- 
ties contending  for  standing  ground  in  space.  There  is  danger, 
to  be  sure,  of  carrying  this  figurative  form  of  expression  to  a 
point  which  will  defeat  itself  by  disguising  the  literal  facts  to 
be  expressed.  To  guard  against  this  excessively  literal  figura- 
tiveness,  we  may  well  put  the  facts  in  a  more  exact  form  before 
returning  to  the  more  convenient  and  vivid  form  of  expression ; 
viz. :  All  the  people  in  America  at  the  close  of  the  War  of 
Independence  had  so  large  a  stake  in  permanent  independence 
and  growing  co-operation  that,  in  the  judgment  of  the  most 
influential,  numerically  and  morally,  it  was  the  absolute  dictate 
of  social  expediency  to  transform  this  dictate  of  expediency 
into  a  principle  of  public  law.  The  reality  of  a  public  com- 
munity, a  whole,  a  State,  depended  upon  the  assertion  of  this 
much  in  the  shape  of  common  interest. 

With  so  much  guarantee  of  good  faith  in  the  use  of  meta- 
phor, we  are  at  liberty  to  say  that  the  existence  of  an  American 
State  meant  the  establishment  of  independence,  and  the  inaugu- 
ration of  co-operation  at  whatever  sacrifice  of  conflicting 
interests.  The  separate  existence,  the  individuality,  of  the 
American  State  hung  upon  the  maintenance  of  independence 
and  co-operation  up  to  an  indeterminate  point,  where  recogni- 
tion of  a  common  lot  with  all  the  world  might  begin,  in  the 
form  of  treaty  stipulations  with  other  powers;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  up  to  another  indeterminate  point,  where  the  indi- 
vidual initiative  of  the  citizens  might  be  recognized  as  com- 
patible with  the  public  interest.  How  uncertain  the  points 
were  through  which  the  boundaries  should  be  run,  may  l>e 
suggested,  in  the  former  case,  by  the  fact  that,  after  more  than 
a  century,  we  have  not  settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  everybody 
what  Washington's  Farewell  Address  meant,  on  the  subject 
of  entangling  alHances  with  foreign  powers;  or  whether  what- 


THE  LATENT  ANTAGONISMS  IN  STATES  247 

ever  he  may  have  meant  was  the  proper  national  program  for 
all  time.  In  the  other  case,  we  have  certainly  changed  our 
original  constitution  of  1789  in  numerous  ways;  and  beyond 
that  we  have  passed  through,  and  are  still  passing  through, 
numerous  transitions  of  thought  about  the  forms,  the  terms, 
the  means,  and  the  limits  of  State  and  personal  co-operation 
within  our  national  borders. 

With  these  details,  however,  we  are  not  now  concerned. 
Our  business  here  is  with  the  main  proposition,  that,  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  State,  it  is  uncompromising  warfare  with 
everything  that  threatens  to  limit  the  State-individuality.  As 
the  location  of  the  elements  of  social  force  in  general  is  in  indi- 
viduals, it  would  be  a  safe  deduction,  without  observation  of 
the  facts,  that  the  process  of  evolving  human  interests  in  asso- 
ciation would  be  a  process  of  collision  between  general  inter- 
ests and  differentiating  special  interests.  If  we  turn  from 
deduction  to  observation  of  actual  civic  life,  we  find  that  this 
is  always  the  case.  The  State  is  not  merely  an  assertion  of 
common  interests.  It  is  so  far  forth  a  denial  of  special  inter- 
ests. Conflict  begins  with  the  appearance  of  absolute  incom- 
patibility between  the  general  and  the  special  interest.  It  goes 
on  until  some  development  is  reached  in  which  it  appears, 
either  that  the  alleged  general  interest  or  the  special  interest 
was  unreal  and  untenable,  or  that  an  adjustment,  which 
adjourns  conflict  between  the  two,  better  satisfies  the  larger 
implications  of  both  than  the  total  extermination  of  either. 

We  may  state  the  point  by  recurring  to  our  American  his- 
tory. No  sooner  was  independence  conceded  by  England  than 
the  conflict  of  interests  began  to  emerge  in  a  new  form.  In 
the  first  place,  there  was  the  Tory  element  which  had  never 
wanted  independence  of  England.  During  the  war,  this  ele- 
ment had  to  be  fought  in  the  rear,  while  Great  Britain  was 
fought  in  front.  American  independence  consequently  had  to 
down  Toryism.  Then  there  were  interests  which  threatened 
to  sell  out  to  France,  or  Spain,  or  possibly  to  other  countries. 
Each  of  these  interests,  in  a  negative  way,  undermined  both 


248  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

independence  and  co-operation.  Then  there  were  positive 
refusals  to  co-operate."*  There  were  the  antagonistic  trade 
regulations;  the  counter-claims  to  public  lands;  the  objections 
to  adoption  of  a  workable  constitution;  etc.,  etc.  Meanwhile 
individuals  were  selfishly  trying  to  work  out  an  atomistic  sal- 
vation, so  far  as  compatible  with  the  social  and  religious  tradi- 
tion which  restrained  them  by  invisible  checks.  Here  was  the 
whole  social  process  in  embryo.  The  part  upon  which  we  are 
throwing  the  emphasis  now  is  the  struggle  of  the  State  itself 
for  existence.  Any  given  stage  of  national  development  is  a 
struggle  of  that  which  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  common 
interest,  and  thus  the  spiritual  substance  of  the  State,  against 
all  and  several  of  the  contesting  interests  which  dispute  for 
place  within  the  civic  order.  We  may  anticipate  the  results  of 
the  whole  process  of  sociological  description  by  the  summary: 
Civilisation,  so  far  as  it  is  hounded  by  natioJial  limits,  consists 
in  enlargement  of  the  content  of  the  common  spiritual  sub- 
stance, until  it  approaches  inclusion  of  all  interests,  so  far  as 
they  depend  upon  concerted  conduct;  leaving  scope  for  inde- 
pendence only  in  those  activities  in  zvhich  free  individual  move- 
ment best  reqlizes  the  common  interests. 

*  Vide  Fiske,  Critical  Period. 


CHAPTER  XX 

TYPES    OF    ANTAGONISTIC    INTERESTS    IN    STATES' 

It  should  be  pointed  out  in  advance  that  the  discrepancy 
between  the  types  of  interests  now  to  be  discovered,  and  the 
sixfold  division  of  interests  assumed  throughout  this  argument, 
is  apparent,  not  real.  Ratzenhofer's  classification  is  analytic; 
that  of  the  syllabus  as  a  whole  is  synthetic.  The  two  confirm 
each  other  at  last. 

We  cannot  repeat  too  often  that  one  constant  motive  in  the 
civic  stage  of  the  social  process  is  the  impulse  of  the  State  to 
confirm  and  magnify  itself. 

The  State,  as  we  have  seen,  has  an  individuality  of  its  own. 
Whatever  else  occurs  within  the  State,  whether  it  is  ancient 
Sparta,  or  imperial  Rome,  or  democratic  America,  this  State- 
personality  is  always  and  forever  the  key  to  the  plot.  In  and 
through  and  above  and  beyond  all  other  interests  that  have  a 
place  in  the  social  reaction,  that  phase  of  interest  which  marks 
the  individuality  of  the  State  as  a  whole  is  forever  striving 
for  mastery.  This  is  not  less  true  in  a  country  like  ours,  where 
the  popular  nature  of  the  State  disguises  its  actual  individu- 
ality, than  in  a  State  like  imperial  Rome,  where  sovereignty 
was  made  into  an  absolute  absorbent  of  all  other  interests. 

Indeed,  there  are  reasons  why  the  citizens  of  a  democratic 
State  need  more  than  others  to  examine  their  own  State- 
individuality,  and  to  be  sure  that  it  is  sane  and  wholesome. 

'  Ratzenhofer,  Wesen  und  Zweck,  sec.  i8.  Up  to  this  point,  except  in 
Part  IV,  chap.  13,  the  references  to  Ratzenhofer  have  been  either  by  way  of 
dissent,  or  they  have  been  rather  remote.  The  remainder  of  Part  IV  will 
closely  follow  his  qualitative  analysis  of  the  civic  process.  This  version, 
however,  must  not  be  taken  as  representing  his  views,  without  careful  com- 
parison of  the  corresponding  passages  in  his  books.  In  this  part  of  his  work 
Ratzenhofer  has  gone  beyond  all  his  predecessors  in  drawing  plans  and  specifi- 
cations of  the  kind  of  positive  knowledge  necessary  as  basis  for  a  real  science 
of  social  relations. 

249 


250  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

"^  It  is  possible  for  the  State-individuality,  like  the  single  person, 
to  harbor  self-destructive  illusions.  It  may  be  that  the  very 
idea  of  a  democratic  State  will  prove  to  be  one  of  those  illu- 
sions. We  certainly  have  not  yet  proved  the  contrary.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  the  form  in  which  democratic  notions  are  at 
present  conceived  in  all  democratic  States  must  undergo 
thorough  revision,  before  they  are  fit  to  mold  the  best  think- 
able social  condition.  For  instance,  the  idea  of  "  freedom  "  was 
one  of  the  elementary  notions  which  constructed  our  national 
idea  of  independence.  But  our  whole  first  century  of  national 
life  was  virtually  exhausted  in  arriving  at  necessary  modifica- 
tions of  the  concept  "  freedom."  Our  State  was  promoting 
an  "  irrepressible  conflict "  by  trying  to  accommodate  two  sov- 
ereignties, where,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  there  could  be  in 
the  last  resort  but  one.  It  proved  that  "  freedom "  which 
worked  out  in  license  of  state  after  state  to  sit  in  judgment 
upon  the  United  States,  must  give  way  to  something  which 
would  make  either  the  states  or  the  United  States  paramount. 
In  other  words,  our  original  State-idea,  or  at  least  the  political 
element  of  it,  was  a  self-contradictory  idea,  and  the  life  of  the 
State  depended  at  last  upon  abandonment  of  the  idea  and  sub- 
stitution of  another  more  tenable.-  I  venture  the  prediction 
that  some  day  it  will  appear  that  the  United  States,  like  France, 
is  sick  from  inoculation  with  other  virus,  which  we  call  by  the 
old  names  "liberty"  and  "equality."  Our  State  is  committed 
at  present  to  the  coddling  of  a  visionary  type  of  "  liberty  "  and 
"equality."  Our  State  is  lavishing  its  strength  in  making  its 
citizens  believe  in  a  liberty  and  equality  which  never  did  nor 
can  exist.  It  will  one  day  be  a  question  of  life  and  death  for 
our  State  whether  it  has  left  itself  vitality  enough  to  assert, 
against  all  the  artificially  incubated  "liberty"  and  "equality" 
in  its  membership,  its  elementary  purpose  of  securing  the 
human,  whether  or  not  it  turns  out,  in  the  case  of  individuals, 
to  be  "free"  or  "equal." 

As  we  have  seen,  States  once  came  into  being  as  a  result 
of  conquest.    Conquerors  made  themselves  masters  and  rulers 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       251 

of  the  conquered.  Now  individuals  and  large  groups  join 
together  because  of  common  interest  in  a  certain  organizing 
idea,  i  Illustrations  are  the  case  of  the  American  colonies ;  the 
union  of  England  and  Scotland;  the  foundation  of  the  king- 
dom of  Italy;  of  the  German  Empire;  etc.,  etc.  We  described 
the  State  interest  earlier,  so  far  as  its  form  is  concerned,  as 
unrelenting  and  uncompromising  self-assertion,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  every  rival  assertion.  So  far  as  its  content  is  con- 
cerned, the  national  interest  is  never  quite  the  same  in  any  two 
States.  Each  State  alleges  its  right  and  duty  to  maintain 
itself  because  —  and  the  make-up  of  that  "because"  varies 
indefinitely.  In  literal  truth,  the  operative  motive  within  the 
State  interest,  in  a  given  case  is  x  parts  instinct  and  vague  senti- 
ment, y  parts  shrewd  calculation  of  personal  advantage,  and  2 
parts  pure  insight  into  the  reasons  why  that  State  has  a  right 
to  exist  among  the  nations.  The  2  element  is  usually  least  in 
quantity.  Yet,  however  composed,  the  State  interest  marshals 
the  population  against  foes  from  within  and  from  without.  It 
stimulates  patriotism,  sense  of  honor,  personal  pride  in  civic 
purposes.  Whether  the  little  kingdom  of  Greece  is  held  together 
most  by  fear  of  the  Turk,  or  by  the  sentiment  of  descent  from  a 
classic  past,  the  Greek  civic  interest  is  a  reality,  and  is  capable 
of  employment  as  truly  as  though  it  were  a  controllable  natural 
force.  The  same  is  true  of  our  own  civic  interest,  as  was 
proved  somewhat  to  our  own  surprise  by  the  virtual  unanimity 
of  all  interests  in  placing  $50,000,000  at  the  disposal  of  the 
President  to  prepare  for  war  with  Spain  in  1898.  It  will 
sometime  become  a  part  of  the  serious  study  and  instruction  of 
all  enlightened  nations  to  identify  the  precise  content  of  their 
State  interest.  At  present  we  take  it  for  granted,  in  phrases 
which  may  mean  much  or  little,  but  which  in  fact  usually 
operate  merely  as  stimuli  of  the  unreflecting  suggestibility  of 
the  population. 

We  enter  now  upon  discussion  of  the  subordinate  interests 
which  always  array  themselves  in  varying  forms  against  the 
common  or  national  interest.     We  are  not  attempting  at  this 


252  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

point  to  classify  the  interests  that  are  active  in  a  particular 
society,  past  or  present.  We  are  not  now  referring  to  any 
special  stage  of  civic  development,  early  or  late.  We  are  pre- 
senting a  schedule  of  interests  that  are  not  necessarily  all 
present  in  an  appreciable  degree  in  all  States.  They  are  merely 
typical  of  situations  in  States  sooner  or  later.  The  following 
conspectus  will  serve  as  an  index  to  the  contents  of  this 
chapter : 

TYPICAL  INTERESTS  WITHIN  STATES 

A.  The  universal  interest ;    sustenance. 

B.  The  kinship  interest. 

C.  The  national  interest. 

D.  The  creedal  interests. 

E.  The  pecuniary  interests. 

F.  The  class  interests. 

1.  Extraction. 

2.  Artisanship. 

3.  Manufacture. 

4.  Wage  labor. 

5.  Trade. 

6.  Professional  and  personal  services. 

7.  Parasitism. 

8.  Pseudo-classes. 

a)  Capital. 

b)  Massed  capital. 

c)  Massed  industry. 

d)  Massed  agriculture. 

G.  The  rank  interests. 

H.    The  corporate  interests.* 

Recasting  the  leading  thesis  of  this  section,  we  have :  Cknc 
society  organised  as  the  State  is  composed  of  individual  and 
group  factors,  each  of  which  has  in  itself  certain  elements  of 
political  independence.  That  is,  each  has  interests  seemingly 
distinct  from  the  interests  of  the  others.  Each  has  some  degree 
of  impulse  to  assert  these  interests  in  spite  of  the  others.  Thus 
the  State  is  a  union  of  disunions,  a  conciliation  of  conflicts,  a 

'This  is  Ratzenhofer's  list.  In  a  later  section  (71)  he  has  a  somewhat 
difTerent  schedule,  which  represents  the  particular  grouping  of  interests  in  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Empire  at  the  date  of  writing. 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       253 

harmony  of  discords.  The  State  is  an  arrangement  of  com- 
binations by  zvhich  nintually  repellent  forces  are  brought  into 
some  measure  of  concurrent  action. 

The  universal  interest  of  every  person  and  group  in  the 
State  is  in  security  of  existence,  i.  e.,  guarantee  of  opportunity 
to  maintain  life,  including  satisfaction  of  the  wants  which  pro- 
tect life.  This  we  may  call  the  universal  interest.  In  so  far 
ns  the  State  protects  its  citizens  in  unhindered  application  of 
their  powers  to  the  task  of  supplying  the  elemental  wants,  the 
State  is  an  agent  for  serving  the  universal  interest.  That 
every  State  does  this,  in  some  measure,  is  a  primary  datum  of 
social  observation.  This  fact  constitutes,  by  the  way,  a  dis- 
tinct and  decisive  challenge  of  that  political  philosophy  which 
regards  the  State  as  a  necessary  evil,  or  still  worse,  an  unne- 
cessary evil.^ 

If  the  development  of  the  State  has  due  regard  to  this 
universal  interest,  that  interest  plays  at  first  but  an  unconscious 
role  in  the  struggle  carried  on  within  the  State.  Every  citizen 
feels  that  it  is  his  own  private  afifair  to  win  the  means  of  exist- 
ence. On  the  other  hand,  the  universal  interest  is  in  a  measure 
sacrificed  if  the  State  directly  assumes  the  burden  of  providing 
the  necessities  of  life  for  certain  individuals  or  groups;  while 
it  is  in  accordance  with  the  universal  interest  that  the  State 
should  rectify  conditions  which  virtually  deprive  individuals 
or  groups  of  opportunity  to  use  their  talents  to  the  full  in  get- 
ting the  means  of  livelihood.  In  either  case,  if  the  State  by 
commission  or  by  omission  fails  to  perform  its  function  of  pro- 
moting the  universal  interest,  that  interest  forthwith  springs 
out  of  the  depths  of  social  unconsciousness  and  becomes  a  lively 
political  factor.  It  forces  itself  to  the  front  as  a  party  in  con- 
flict. If  the  civic  organization  is  so  misapplied  in  this  respect 
that  the  whole  population  is  conscious  of  social  friction  and 
failure,  then  the  whole  people  will  become  a  political  factor  in 
struggle  against  the  government.     The  universal  interest  will 

•  Ratzenhofer,  Wesen  ttnd  Zweck,  p.  162. 


254  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

array  itself  against  the  administration  that  subordinates  it  to 
partial  interests. 

A  variation  of  this  situation  occurs  in  the  case  of  a  gov- 
ernment run  on  a  too  expensive  scale,  and  imposing  intolerable 
burdens  of  taxation.  The  later  days  of  the  Bourbon  monarchy 
in  France  furnish  the  clearest  example  of  this  situation.  The 
universal  interest  is  always  operating,  but  at  the  present  stage 
of  social  development  it  becomes  a  political  factor  only  excep- 
tionally. If  the  truth  were  known,  the  politics  of  Russia, 
Germany,  Italy,  and  Spain  today  are  kept  from  being  frank 
fighting  on  the  issue  of  artificial  hindrance  of  the  universal 
physical  welfare,  only  by  conventionalities  w'hich  first  obscure 
the  issue,  and,  second,  play  off  against  each  other  sections  of 
the  population  whose  immediate  interests  are  affected  in  differ- 
ent ways  by  the  artificial  arrangements  that  make  the  issue. 
In  France,  England,  and  the  United  States,  material  prosperity 
interposes  a  buffer  between  State  policies  and  the  universal 
interest,  as  it  comes  to  consciousness  in  certain  classes.  In 
these  latter  nations  it  seems  less  probable  that  a  rehearing  of 
the  whole  case  of  governmental  programs  can  be  called  for  at 
an  early  date.  Yet  the  moment  there  is  a  temporary  disturb- 
ance of  industrial  prosperity  in  either  of  these  countries,  the 
cry  of  the  part  of  the  people  closest  to  the  margin  of  subsistence 
at  once  goes  up  against  fundamental  policies  of  government. 
It  is  alleged  that  government  is  in  the  interest  of  those  who 
have,  and  regardless  of  the  interests  of  those  who  have  not; 
in  other  words,  that  it  does  not  represent  the  State,  but  has 
borrowed  the  livery  of  the  State  for  the  service  of  special  inter- 
ests. In  such  a  case  the  universal  interest  becomes  the  issue 
for  one  side  of  the  conflict,  while  on  the  other  the  contention  is 
only  indirectly  for  the  universal  interest,  but  rather  for  derived 
interests;  that  is,  specialized  interests  in  which  the  universal 
interest  is  a  relatively  remote  factor.  The  conservative  inter- 
ests contend  for  "  vested  rights,"  or  their  customary  political 
influence,  rather  than  immediately  for  means  of  existence. 

The  kinship  interest. —  The  primitive  party  interest  in  the 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       255 

State  is  that  of  like  derivation  —  i.  e.,  the  bond  of  common 
physical  ancestry.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  enlarge  here  upon 
the  phenomena  of  clannishness  —  the  universal  tendency  to 
feel  that  the  stranger  is  an  enemy,  and  the  man  of  one's  own 
blood  is  of  a  superior  sort  to  the  alien.  "  Man  is  a  wolf  to  the 
man  whom  he  does  not  know."  \  Primitive  tribal  and  national 
wars  are  survivals  and  extensions  of  family  feuds. )  While 
this  type  of  special  interest  is  by  no  means  without  influence 
today,  yet^t  is  relatively  on  the  decline  in  general.  In  its  place 
comes : 

The  national  interest.* — The  nation  consists  of  the  people 
of  a  State  developed  from  linguistic  and  cultural  unity.  So 
long  as  the  nation  and  the  State  are  coextensive,  the  national 
and  the  civic  interest  are  also  one.  But  the  State  may  either  be 
a  mere  arbitrary  combination  of  nations  that  would  prefer  inde- 
pendence, as  in  the  case  of  the  provinces  absorbed  by  Rome 
after  conquest,  or  a  State  which  has  once  been  partially  uni-  1/ 
fied  may  cleave  into  various  parts^  one  of  which  dominates,  the 
others  of  which  antagonize  the  prevailing  power.  There  are 
thus  nations  within  the  State.  Such  is  the  case  in  Great 
Britain  today  with  reference  to  Ireland,  in  Austria-Hungary, 
in  Russia,  in  Turkey,  etc.  It  often  occurs  that  these  fragments 
have  more  virility  and  group-consciousness  than  the  main  or 
trunk  portion  of  the  nation.  They  consequently  oppose  obsti- 
nate resistance  to  amalgamating  tendencies.^ 

V  An  incident,  a  tool,  and  to  some  extent  a  cause  of  the 
national  interest  is  common  language,  and  the  same  is  true  of 
common  customs  and  culture. '  At  the  same  time,  as  in  all 
other  cases  of  social  fact,  the  cause  and  the  means  are  also 
agent  and  effect;  the  aspect  in  which  they  appear  depending 
upon  the  stage  in  the  process  in  which  we  view  them.  The 
more  highly  the  national  interest  is  developed,  the  more  will 
the  tribal  or  racial  interest  merge  itself  into  the  national  inter- 

*  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  164,  165. 

'  Vide    Simons,    "  Social    Assimilation,"    American    Journal    of   Sociology, 
May,  1 90 1 — January,  1902. 


256  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

est.  With  this  higher  national  development  comes  a  surrender 
of  the  tribal  interest  in  maintaining  separate  language  and 
customs,  and  in  its  place  adoption  of  the  language  and  customs 
of  the  State.  '  This  is  seen  most  conspicuously  in  Europe  today 
in  the  Rhine  provinces  of  Elsass  and  Lothringen;  and  in  the 
United  States  we  have  striking  illustrations  in  the  pathetic  and 
ineffectual  struggles  of  the  older  elements  in  our  immigrant 
population  to  preserve  their  own  languages  in  church  and 
school.  '  The  first  generation  born  in  America  of  foreign  par- 
entage throws  off  the  foreign  language  as  a  burden  too  heavy 
to  be  borne.  N 

It  is  worth  while  to  notice  a  generalization  and  an  infer- 
ence which  Ratzenhofer  ventures  in  this  connection."  He 
says: 

In  North  America  we  see  the  population  in  such  haste  for  gain  that 
they  form  no  close  groups  upon  the  basis  of  common  language.  They 
abandon  their  mother-tongue  for  the  English  language,  which  is  everywhere 
needed  for  practical  purposes.  But  the  time  will  come  when  the  popula- 
tion will  have  become  dense.  The  struggle  for  existence  will  have  to  be 
more  carefully  planned.  Then  the  people  of  America  will  be  forced  to 
stop  and  reflect.  There  will  be  need  of  attaching  themselves  to  the  several 
political  groups  into  which  their  individual  interests  naturally  divide  them, 
in  order  to  gain  the  reinforcement  of  the  group  interest  for  each  one's 
individual  interest.  When  that  situation  comes  about,  the  memory  of  racial 
extraction  may  at  last  be  reawakened.  The  different  languages  may 
become  the  rallying  centers  for  the  different  interests.  Thereupon  for  the 
first  time  will  America  confront  decisively  the  problem  of  its  national 
unity. 

There  is  a  delicious  long-distance  assurance  between  the 
lines  of  these  sentences,  which  is  unmistakably  German. 
Ratzenhofer  does  not  say  in  so  many  words  that  the  United 
States  will  break  up  into  little  England,  and  Ireland,  and 
Sweden,  and  Norway,  and  Germany,  and  Poland,  and 
Bohemia,  and  Italy,  and  Africa ;  but  that  is  the  suggestion. 
This  forecast  is  a  typical  case  of  European  failure  to  sen.se  the 
trend  of  American  tendencies.  It  is  of  a  piece  with  both 
German  and  Spanish  predictions,  early  in  1898,  that  a  foreign 

*  Loc.  cit.,  p.  165. 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       257 

war  would  be  the  signal  for  a  new  secession  of  the  southern 
states  from  the  Union.  It  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  hal- 
lucination, which  certain  pan-Germanists  cherish,  that  in  case 
of  collision  between  Germany  and  America,  the  German  popu- 
lation would  go  over  to  the  side  of  the  Fatherland.  It  is  a 
symptom  of  radical  failure  to  appreciate  the  crucial  fact  in  the 
American  situation,  viz.,  that  the  Americans  live  in  the  present, 
not  in  the  past.  The  sense  of  reality  among  them  is  strong 
enough  to  force  reminiscences  of  past  reality  into  their  rightful 
place.  The  new  practical  interests  of  our  population  relegate 
the  minor  interests  to  roles  so  subordinate  that  they  certainly 
cannot  be  taken  seriously  as  factors  of  future  disunion.  Once 
a  year,  in  our  great  cities,  it  is  possible  to  gather  around  a 
banquet  table  a  few  hundred  actual  and  constructive  descend- 
ants of  the  Huguenots,  or  the  Puritans,  or  the  Knickerbockers, 
or  the  Sons  of  New  England,  or  New  York,  or  Ohio ;  but  even 
during  their  celebration  these  people  know  that  their  strongest 
interests  are  not  with  each  other,  but  with  people  of  all  the 
ancestries  that  compose  our  population.  The  next  morning 
they  will  go  about  their  business  with  their  neighbors  with 
no  more  sense  of  stratification  along  these  hereditary  lines 
than  if  they  were  sprung  from  a  single  racial  stock. 

While  we  discriminate  these  threads  out  of  which  the  social 
fabric  is  woven,  and  we  remember  that  they  were  originally 
of  very  different  textures,  we  must  also  bear  in  mind  that  this 
difference  of  texture  in  the  individuals  is  a  vanishing  quantity, 
at  least  under  conditions  like  those  in  America.  We  must 
learn  to  give  due  value  to  the  different  elements  involved  in 
the  social  process;  but  this  calls  for  absolute  veto  of  the  idea 
that  their  historical  and  their  contemporary  force  are  equal. 
Races  which  are  found  today  within  the  confines  of  civilized 
States,  and  which  can  neither  consolidate  themselves  into 
nations  nor  become  integral  parts  of  nations,  must  inevitably 
disappear.  Such,  for  instance,  are  the  Gypsies  in  Europe,  and 
the  North  American  Indians.  The  cause  of  their  decay  is  not 
essentially  their  clinging  to  their  racial  affinities;  but  thev  ^'^'- 


2S8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

out  gradually  in  the  course  of  social  conflict,  because  they  intro- 
duce into  it  no  higher  interest  than  that  of  race.  The  higher 
interests  always  provide  themselves  with  more  effective  means 
of  conflict,  and  these  inevitably  extinguish  sooner  or  later  the 
groups  which  do  not  enter  into  the  higher  competition. 

The  creedal  interest. —  The  most  important  interest  in  its 
historical  bearings  upon  the  social  process  is  the  creedal  or 
confessional  interest.  Ratzenhofer  ventures  the  generalization 
that  the  creedal  interest  is  genetically  a  more  highly  developed 
racial  instinct.  This  again  is  one  of  the  formulas  which  con- 
tain a  diminishing  ratio  of  truth  the  farther  along  we  follow 
the  social  process.  It  is  relatively  true  at  the  beginning.  It 
is  far  from  true  at  the  present  stage  of  progress.  Moreover, 
Ratzenhofer's  theorem  is  always  a  mechanical  statement  of 
the  fact,  and  it  so  far  fails  to  indicate  the  essential  dissimilarity 
of  the  racial  and  the  creedal  interests. 

It  seems  at  first  glance  that  there  can  be  nothing  in  common 
between  an  interest  that  utters  itself  in  a  formula  of  religious 
belief,  and  the  political  interests  that  have  striven  against  each 
other  throughout  the  social  process.  It  is  a  fact,  however,  that 
up  till  now  the  creed  element  has  confirmed  and  intensified  race- 
antipathies,  so  that  we  cannot  understand  racial  struggles 
unless  we  see  them  as  at  the  same  time  creed-struggles;  nor 
can  we  understand  creed-struggles  in  their  earlier  forms  unless 
we  interpret  them  in  part  as  race-strugglesj  At  all  events,  the 
racial  and  the  creedal  interests  have  been  in  the  closest  sort 
of  co-operation,  and  have  together  formed  the  political  units 
that  have  conflicted.  In  other  words,  people  of  like  origin  and 
common  abode  usually  have  the  same  religious  belief.  When 
this  belief  is  crystallized  in  a  formula,  the  political  interest  of 
the  group  in  which  the  creed  holds  sway  is  apt  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  formula,  and  to  organize  the  people  into  a  stronger 
political  unity  by  means  of  it.  Of  course,  the  converse  of  this 
also  occurs,  as  we  shall  observe  later.  When  conquest  brings 
to  pass  mixture  of  races,  the  dominant  religious  formula  gives 
a  new  lease  of  life  and  new  extension  of  sway  over  the  con- 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       259 

quered  peoples  and  areas.  Then  follows  the  question  of  per- 
manent relations  between  the  creedal  interests  of  conquerors 
and  conquered.  The  solution  may  be  permanent  absorption  of 
one  creed  by  another,  or  it  may  be  differentiation  of  the  creedal 
interest.  Schism  may  occur.  This  division  may  be  very  far 
from  a  matter  of  pure  religious  abstraction.  It  may  occur 
quite  within  the  lines  drawn  by  political  interest.  As  a  general 
rule/ whenever  the  political  interest  gets  v/eightier  than  the 
zeal  for  creed,  then  those  adherents  to  whom  the  creed  means 
least,  desert.  They  become  schismatics.  Those  who  can  adjust 
the  creed  to  their  political  interests,  on  the  contrary,  stand  by 
it,  and  become  the  orthodox  defenders  of  the  faith. 

Both  in  the  case  of  the  schismatic  and  of  the  orthodox  ele- 
ment of  the  State,  the  higher  powers  bring  all  possible  influ- 
ence to  bear  upon  the  inferior  orders  to  procure  civic  and  reli- 
gious conformity,  and  thus  new  and  stronger  unity.  All  the 
party  groups  which  exist  within  the  range  of  the  State  or  the 
creed  try  to  gear  on  to  their  machinery  the  power  of  the  con- 
fessional interest.  For  instance,  the  petty  princes  of  Germany 
made  the  most  of  the  Protestant  movement,  and  the  Catholic 
reaction,  to  strengthen  their  own  government,  and  conversely 
they  gave  all  the  force  at  their  command  to  support  or  to  defeat 
the  movement.  In  the  same  way,  the  French  nobility  used 
Protestantism  in  the  struggle  against  the  monarchy;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  was  a 
means  of  confirming  the  absolutism  of  the  throne. 

The  chief  builders  of  States  have  been  the  racial  and  the 
confessional  interests.  It  naturally  and  necessarily  follows 
that,  within  the  States  which  they  construct,  the  special  struc- 
tures peculiar  to  each  exist  as  relatively  distinct  factors  —  per- 
sonalities, so  to  speak."^  VThe  universal  interest  is  the  mother 
of  all  interests.  This  interest  of  the  individual,  however,  in 
self-maintenance  and  self-expression,  needs  a  fraternity  of 
interests  to  organize  the  struggle  for  the  universal  interest. 
There  is  use  for  a  special  interest  representing  the  need  of  all 

''  Loc.  cit.,  p.  167. 


26o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  individuals  to  co-operate.  This  demand  is  supplied  at  first 
by  the  racial  and  the  creedal  interests,  with  their  corresponding 
co-operation.  Under  the  workings  of  the  racial  and  the  creedal 
interests  the  universal  interest  is  merely  veiled.  But  presently 
still  other  factors  are  differentiated;  viz.: 

The  pecuniary  interests. —  We  give  them  this  name  for 
brevity,  although  it  is  not  strictly  precise  and  adequate.  Inas- 
much as  money  is  the  civilized  medium  by  which  all  the  efforts 
to  be  indicated  under  this  head  reach  their  aim,  we  shall  not  go 
far  astray  in  using  this  designation.  We  mean  now  the  inter- 
est which  every  individual  manifests  in  adding  to  his  posses- 
sions. It  may  be  that  the  effectiveness  of  the  interest  in  a 
given  case  does  not  reach  beyond  spasmodic  and  precarious 
pursuit  of  barely  enough  food  to  support  life.  It  may  be  that 
it  takes  the  form  of  capitalistic  organization  on  the  largest 
scale,  with  a  view  to  further  creation  and  control  of  capital. 
/  Everything  arriving  at  qualitatively  the  same  end  —  i.  e., 
more  material  possessions  —  whether  verging  toward  one 
extreme  or  the  other,  is  in  view  under  this  head.    ) 

The  individuals  who  make  gains  by  the  same  occupations 
are  naturally  hostile  to  each  other;  their  interests  invade  the 
same  fields  of  satisfaction.  This  is  the  situation  of  economic 
competition  without  political  complications. 

Until  comparatively  recent  years  the  appearance  of  clash- 
ing interests  between  individuals  in  the  same  occupation  has 
been  so  conclusive  that  competition  could  not  pass  into  com- 
bination within  a  State.  This  statement  does  not  ignore 
ancient  associations,  mediaeval  gilds,  etc.,  etc.  We  are  making 
a  general  comparison  of  ancient  and  modern  extremes.  People 
pursued  the  same  occupation  either  without  paying  attention 
to  each  other,  or,  in  case  the  competition  became  sharp,  in 
unregulated  rivalry  with  each  other.  There  was  group- 
consciousness  of  the  same  sort  only  which  is  present  between 
two  dogs  fighting  for  the  same  bone.  In  order  that  the  scat- 
tered and  hostile  persons  pursuing  the  same  vocation  may  be 
brought  to  form  class  groups,  wath  group  interests  that  will 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES      261 

organize  the  primary  individual  interests,  some  sort  of  political 
diversion  has  been  historically  necessary.  The  political  inter- 
est has  had  to  act  as  a  reagent  to  fuse  the  divergent  persons 
carrying  on  the  same  gainful  occupation.  If  these  persons  are 
stimulated  by  some  common  interest,  say  national,  creedal, 
local,  or  whatever,  they  may  form  themselves  into  homoge- 
neous clusters,  with  distinct  group-reaction  against  other  simi- 
lar clusters.  For  instance,  Christian  artisans  against  Jewish 
artisans,  or,  in  terms  of  modern  conditions,  union  vs.  non- 
union labor. 

That  is,  in  order  that  a  distinct  vocational  interest  may 
develop,  in  contrast  with  the  individual  interests  of  the  persons 
pursuing  the  vocation,  the  calling  must  pass  into  a  corporate 
form.  This  occurs  in  the  case  of  that  sort  of  competition 
which  the  workers  of  a  given  vocation  encountered  with  like 
workers  in  foreign  States.  Here  is  the  origin  of  ancient  and 
modern  protective  tariffs.  That  is,  the  foreign  competition 
stimulates  class-consciousness,  and  sense  of  common  danger, 
among  the  competing  workers  at  home.  Their  fears  of  each 
other  are  for  the  time  forgotten  in  the  fact  of  common  peril. 
To  ward  off  this  threatening  evil,  they  unite  as  one  person,  so 
far  as  the  common  interests  go.  They  throw  their  influence 
into  the  arena  of  commercial  politics. 

Again,  persons  pursuing  the  same  vocation  form  themselves 
into  political  personalities,  with  the  common  purpose  of  procur- 
ing modifications  or  additions  to  the  formal  law  of  the  State, 
which  will  be  favorable  to  their  vocation;  and  beyond  that, 
to  procure  administrative  action  that  will  place  them  on  a  more 
favorable  level  as  compared  with  other  occupations.  Thus  the 
mediaeval  gilds;  the  modern  agricultural  party,  as  against  the 
manufacturing  and  commercial  interests,  in  Germany;  the 
populistic  in  conflict  with  the  capitalistic  interests  in  the  United 
States;  etc.  For  samples  of  the  political  power  which  voca- 
tional interests  have  exerted  in  the  past  we  need  cite  only  the 
Hanse  League  and  the  British  East  India  Company  as 
instances. 


362  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

For  convenience,  we  have  roughly  divided  gainful  occupa- 
tions into  eight  groups.  We  shall  not  discuss  them  seriatim, 
but  in  general  the  remaining  paragraphs  of  this  chapter  will 
have  the  series  in  view.  In  every  State  the  balance  of  occupa- 
tions will  be  prescribed  by  a  variety  of  circumstances,  such  as 
geographic,  climatic,  and  topographic  conditions;  historical 
tradition;  genius  of  its  people;  the  productivity  of  the  soil;  etc., 
etc.  Thus  the  geographical  location  of  England  has  given  it 
a  distinctively  commercial  development.  Its  wealth  of  coal  and 
iron  has  made  it  a  leader  in  manufacture,  and  at  the  same  time 
given  to  commerce  its  necessary  exchangeable  material.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  conformation  of  the  surface  has  made 
Switzerland  a  country  of  hotel-keepers,  and  the  vicissitudes  of 
history  have  turned  many  of  the  Italians  into  showmen  and 
beggars.^  \  Extractive  industry  and  manufactures  are  fore- 
ordained by  natural  conditions.  Commerce  is  cause  and  effect 
of  both.  Supply  of  raw  material  and  of  manufactured  products 
creates  effort  to  exchange  them  for  goods  not  produced  at 
home,  or  not  so  advantageously,  and  the  commercial  machinery 
thus  promotes  further  increase  of  supply  in  order  that  it  may 
have  more  goods  to  exchange. 

The  other  gainful  occupations  attach  themselves  to  these 
cardinal  classes  (extraction,  manufacture,  and  trade )^  As 
a  rule,  they  do  not  count  much  in  social  struggle,  until  class 
status  begins  to  become  intolerable  through  actual  or  relative 
disadvantage,  as  compared  with  other  classes  in  the  State.  For 
instance/  there  has  always  been  in  the  United  States  some  mani- 
festation of  political  energy  on  the  part  of  the  agricultural 
population,  whenever  it  has  been  suspected  that  the  industrial 
or  commercial  interests  were  getting  the  better  of  them.^  Thus 
the  opposition  of  the  southern  states  to  the  tariff  policy  of  the 
North  was  one  element  in  the  irrepressible  conflict  between 
the  sections.  Of  course,  this  seemingly  economic  question  pure 
and  simple  was  obscured  by  the  more  obviously  moral  question 
of  slavery,(but  the  agricultural  7's.   the  commercial   and  the 

"  Loc.  cit.,  p.  168. 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       263 

manufacturing  interest  was  as  real  a  political  factor  as  it  has 
been  in  recent  years  in  campaigns  over  the  tariff  issue. 

In  the  case  of  every  State,  or  civic  society,  it  is  at  least 
thinkable  that  there  shall  be  a  condition  of  working  equilibrium 
between  these  interests,  or,  if  not  that,  in  societies  too  little 
advanced  for  such  a  condition,  at  least  non-interference,  if  not 
harmony.  This  situation  actually  occurs  when  political  antag- 
onisms are  held  in  check,  and  when  the  different  individual 
interests  have  free  scope  to  seek  satisfaction.  Competition 
among  individuals  for  gain  of  individual  ends  must,  however, 
be  on  a  purely  individual  basis.  So  soon  as  some  persons  join 
themselves  with  others,  and  form  partnerships  to  make  them- 
selves more  effective  in  competition  than  others  are  alone,  there 
comes  into  existence  by  this  very  fact  a  distinct  struggle  ele- 
ment which  turns  free  competition  into  artificial  political  strife. 
In  such  a  period  of  industrial  harmony,  gainful  occupations  sub- 
divide into  countless  branches.  The  people  who  carry  them 
on  constitute  casual  or  organized  groups,  but  rather  for  cultiva- 
tion of  common  affinities  than  for  purposes  of  making  them- 
selves felt  in  struggle  with  others.  Such  a  condition  of 
industrial  peace  and  fellowship  within  occupations  was  most 
conspicuous  in  the  most  prosperous  period  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

But  there  are  latent  antagonisms  between  one  branch  of 
industry  and  another  which  sooner  or  later  place  them  in  more 
or  less  ruthless  opposition,  as  factions  striving  for  antagonistic 
ends.  The  organization,  structure,  and  activity  of  these  fac- 
tions as  such  are  rather  irregular,  spasmodic,  and  ineffective,  so 
long  as  social  struggle  is  well  distributed.  When,  however, 
there  arise  real  life-and-death  problems,  then  industrial  group- 
ings at  once  consolidate  into  distinct  parties  in  conflict.  Then 
the  artisan  class  will  group  itself  into  trade  organizations 
according  to  the  kind  of  work  produced.  So  also  with  the 
factory  workers.  The  classes  of  extractive  laborers,  traders, 
and  wage-workers  divide  along  the  lines  of  ability,  property, 
methods  of  production,  or  common  location.  These  spontane- 
ous or  systematic  groupings  will  at  once  begin,  not  only  to 


264  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

guard  the  interests  of  their  members,  but  also  to  attack  the 
positions  of  other  industrial  groups. 

If  the  general  economic  condition  is  relatively  favorable, 
the  friction  between  these  groupings  may  continue,  simply  as 
action  and  reaction  between  vocations  or  localities.  If,  how- 
ever, there  occurs  some  general  industrial  disturbance  of  a 
serious  sort,  such  as  a  condition  of  overproduction,  or  a  failure 
of  the  harvest,  it  is  likely  to  turn  out  that  these  vocational 
groupings  will  be  weakened  or  even  destroyed.  In  their  place 
the  economic  classes  will  enter  the  political  arena,  and  carry  on 
the  conflict  with  greater  energy. 

At  this  stage,  and  under  these  conditions,  the  question  at 
issue  is  not  the  favorable  or  unfavorable  economic  ciicum- 
stances.  The  classes  are  rather  up  in  arms  to  gain  or  keep 
political  rights,  and  to  get  the  power  of  the  State  to  support 
their  interests.  It  may  be  that  the  standard  of  life  of  an 
industrial  class  may  be  so  seriously  threatened  that  this  class- 
struggle  will  reach  the  extreme  of  absolute  hostility, 


CHAPTER   XXI 

TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES 
(continued) 

At  this  point  a  distinction  is  necessary.  There  is  a  differ- 
ence between  danger  to  an  interest,  or  to  the  standard  of  Hfe 
represented  by  a  particular  class,  and  danger  which  may 
threaten  the  individual  existence  of  the  persons  within  the  class. 
The  two  may  in  a  given  case  depend  more  or  less  directly  upon 
each  other,  but  a  moment's  thought  will  show  that  they  have 
different  force  and  meaning  in  the  social  reaction.  For 
instance:  The  land-owning  interest  is  threatened  if  importa- 
tion tends  to  supply  raw  material  to  such  an  extent  that  rents 
fall;  the  professional  begging  interest  is  threatened  by  legal 
prohibition  of  begging;  the  small  farming  interest  is 
threatened  if  taxation,  and  such  other  demands  as  feudal  ser- 
vice or  modern  military  duty,  depress  the  possible  standard  of 
life  below  the  traditions  of  the  class;  labor  interests,  if  wages 
are  cut  below  the  customary  scale ;  etc.,  etc.  While  in  each 
of  these  cases  the  danger  points  toward  further  dangers,  till 
life  itself  may  be  in  question,  yet  in  themselves  these  pressures 
upon  particular  interests  are  not  equally  immediate  attacks 
upon  the  universal  subsistence  interest  of  individuals.  The 
landowner  is  not  deprived  of  food  by  foreign  competition. 
The  beggar  is  not  debarred  from  work  when  begging  is  for- 
bidden. In  the  case  of  the  small  farmer  and  the  wage-worker, 
on  the  contrary,  the  changes  supposed  come  very  much  nearer 
to  matters  of  life  and  death.  Other  means  of  subsistence  are 
fewer,  even  at  a  lower  standard  of  life.  Thus  the  class  interest 
and  the  subsistence  interest  approach  identity  as  the  class 
remains  in  its  standards  of  life  close  to  the  margin  of  subsist- 
ence. Furthermore,  the  fierceness  of  class-struggle  will  be 
determined  in  general  by  the  same  ratio.     That  is,  in  propor- 

265 


2(56  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

tion  as  the  class  interest  and  the  existence  interest  coincide, 
will  the  struggle  of  the  class  against  other  classes  grow  intense.  ' 
This  principle  expresses  the  law  which  has  always  been  illus- 
trated by  the  occasional  peasant  and  artisan  revolts.  The  other 
side  of  the  law  may  be  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  there  is 
struggle  between  the  women  of  New  York  society  only  to  the 
extent  of  cutting  each  other  from  their  invitation  lists;  while 
the  husbands  of  these  women,  in  Wall  Street,  may  be  attacking 
each  other's  means  of  subsistence. 

It  comes  about  in  various  ways  that  the  different  industrial 
classes  find  themselves  in  frank  and  sharp  conflict  within  the 
State.  Civic  measures  for  the  security  of  circulating  capital, 
such  as  bankruptcy  laws;  measures  to  protect  particular 
branches  of  industry,  such  as  tariff  laws;  measures  to  secure 
real  property ;  policies  of  taxation ;  and  the  conferring  of 
corporate  rights,  whether  economic  or  administrative  —  each 
and  all  may  array  classes  in  direct  political  hostility  to  each 
other.  A  further  case  of  the  same  general  fact  is  the  challenge 
given  and  accepted,  on  the  one  hand,  by  combined  industrial 
interests,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  by  members  of  several  minor 
industrial  classes  —  as  the  wage-workers  and  the  farmers, 
against  the  capitalists. ;  There  is  usually  conflict  of  interests 
between  the  three  groups :  producers  of  raw  material,  wage- 
workers,  and  manufacturers.  Trade  interests  act  as  a  bal- 
ance of  power  between  extractive  and  manufacturing  inter- 
ests. Trade  may  ally  itself  according  to  circumstances  with 
either,  but  seldom,  if  ever,  with  labor,  whether  that  of  wage- 
earners  or  of  independent  artisans.  Parasitism  is  normally 
isolated,  but  it  may  actually  be  encouraged  by  the  productive 
interests  as  a  measure  of  political  warfare  against  other  inter- 
ests, as  when  firms  and  corporations  contribute  to  campaign 
funds  with  knowledge  that  the  money  will  go  largely  to  the 
support  of  tramp  voters. 

It  further  occurs  that  branches  of  industry  which  have 
reached  extraordinary  development  pose  in  the  political  arena 
in  opposition  to  all  other  branches  together.     Thus  the  cattle 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       267 

interest  in  certain  South  American  countries  may  practically 
control  the  government.  In  Great  Britain  the  textile  industries, 
or  the  iron  industries,  may  virtually  dictate  terms  to  the  rest 
of  the  nation. 

In  general,  the  political  power  of  industrial  classes  depends 
upon  their  facility  in  combining  their  forces  for  political  action. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  actual,  but  of  controllable  political 
power.^  The  amount  of  available  power  for  struggle  in  an 
industrial  class  varies,  of  course,  with  the  personal  equation  of 
the  members  of  the  class.  Leaving  this  out  of  consideration, 
however,  and  supposing  that  the  units  of  two  classes  are  equal 
to  each  other,  man  for  man,  in  possible  aggressive  energy,  the 
struggle-capacity  of  the  classes  to  which  they  severally  belong 
will  vary,  first,  with  the  quantity  of  their  wealth,  either  actual 
or  potential;  second,  with  the  degree  of  physical  contact 
between  the  members. 

Those  industrial  classes  and  branches  of  classes  that  com- 
mand considerable  wealth  have  relatively  little  need  of  physical 
contact.  By  means  of  money  they  can  put  themselves  in 
spiritual  contact  with  each  other.  Thus  the  means  of  spiritual 
communication  and  exchange  unify  the  members  of  the  large 
land-holding  class,  the  manufacturing  and  the  commercial 
class.  They  become  struggle-factors  of  the  first  rank.  They 
can  act  with  system,  and  can  bring  their  whole  power  to  bear 
at  a  single  point.  They  are  like  a  well-disciplined  regiment 
opposed  by  crowds  of  unorganized  civilians.  We  have  been 
realizing  this  fact  more  and  more  in  the  United  States,  in  the 
commercial  and  manufacturing  era  since  the  Civil  War. 
Capital  and  the  advantages  of  property  give,  to  the  classes 
possessing  them,  both  legitimate  means  of  calling  govern- 
mental agencies  to  their  assistance,  and  also  more  or  less 
questionable  power  to  enlist  physical  force  to  carry  out  their 
aims  (e.  g.,  the  Pinkertons,  armed  cowboys,  fights  of  street- 
and  steam-railway  builders,  etc.,  etc.). 

On  the  other  hand,  the  industrial  classes  that  lack  property 

''  Loc.  cil.j  p.  169. 


L^ 


268  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

have  only  a  minimum  of  concerted  unity.  They  must  for  a 
long  time  act  in  an  unintegrated  fashion.  They  work  at  cross- 
purposes.  They  obstruct  each  other,  and  oppose  no  strong 
resistance  to  the  united  classes.  Russia  presents  this  situation 
in  an  extreme  form  today.  The  artisans,  the  small  farmers, 
the  small  retail  traders  are  least  powerful  of  all.  They  are 
scattered  in  space.  They  have  little  contact  with  each  other, 
and  they  have  only  limited  means  for  establishing  spiritual 
contact. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  wage-earners  in  factories  and  mines, 
though  possessing  individually  less  property  in  general  than 
the  types  last  named,  have  the  compensating  advantage  of 
physical  contact.  They  are  in  close  touch  with  each  other. 
They  share  a  common  lot.  They  have  simultaneously  the 
same  experiences  and  feelings.  They  can  develop,  not  only 
group-consciousness,  but  campaign  programs.  They  are  thus 
more  frequently  in  powerful  battle  array  as  strong  factors  in 
social  conflict.  For  precisely  opposite  reasons,  or  because  of 
separation  in  space, 'agricultural  wage-laborers  are  usually  the 
least  powerful  of  all  in  social  strife.  > 

In  this  connection  we  may  most  conveniently  refer  to  what 
I  have  called  the  pseudo-classes.  Saved  up  labor  becomes 
capital.  While  it  is  the  source  of  endless  confusion  in  economic 
theory  to  personify  capital,  and  to  treat  it  as  though  it  were  an 
active  factor  in  the  social  reaction,  there  is  a  certain  limited 
propriety  and  convenience  in  discussing  the  facts  under  this 
form.  At  this  point  we  are  not  dealing  with  the  ethics  of  the 
situation  at  all,  but  only  with  the  process.  We  are  merely 
singling  out  the  active  factors  in  the  actual  social  struggle,  and 
showing  the  mode  of  their  action.  Now,  it  is  certain  that 
capital  plays  a  role  in  social  struggle  which  makes  it  necessary 
for  us  to  understand  it  as  an  impersonal,  but  not  less  real, 
party  in  conflict. 

In  the  first  place,  capital  itself  produces  nothing.  It  earns 
nothing.  This  is  contrary  to  general  economic  presumptions, 
and    all    forms   of   orthodox    economic    doctrine    covertly   or 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES      269 

expressly  appropriate  certain  amounts  of  inference  from  the 
opposite  assumptions  to  buttress  their  own  positions.  Capital 
puts  in  a  claim  to  the  spoils  of  struggle  in  the  economic  and 
political  field,  just  as  though  it  were  an  active  factor  in  produc- 
tion. Capital  claims  for  itself  a  portion  of  the  product  of 
industry.  This  is  quite  different  from  the  valid  claim  of  the 
capitalist  as  a  laborer  to  his  share  of  values  produced.  Inci- 
dental to  its  pushing  of  this  claim,  capital  collects  a  share  of 
industrial  products  in  the  form  of  interest,  profits,  dividends, 
etc.  In  other  words,  the  capitalist  collects,  besides  his  personal 
dues  as  a  laborer,  another  portion  of  products  credited  to  the 
impersonal  factor,  capital. 

Not  asking  now  whether  this  fact  of  interest-paying  and 
interest-taking  conforms  to  a  real  reciprocity  of  service,  but 
leaving  that  question  for  later  treatment,  we  have  at  present  to 
do  merely  with  the  fact,  as  evidence  of  an  interest  that  has 
been  growing  more  and  more  significant  in  recent  develop- 
ments of  the  social  process.  The  capitalistic  interest  calls  for 
regular  payment,  by  the  user  of  capital  to  the  owner  of  capital, 
of  a  certain  share  of  products.  So  far,  all  possessors  of  capital 
have  identical  interests,  whether  they  are  merely  depositors  in 
the  five-cent  savings  banks,  or  holders  of  millions  of  govern- 
ment bonds.  The  farmer  in  Maine,  who  holds  a  $500  mort- 
gage on  a  Dakota  farm,  is  a  part  of  this  support  for  the  dis- 
tinct claims  of  capital,  just  as  really  as  the  operator  in  Wall 
Street.  Indeed,  the  claims  of  capital  are  often  more  strenu- 
ously maintained  by  people  whose  income  is  derived  chiefly 
from  labor,  than  by  those  who  draw  their  income  wholly  in 
the  form  of  interest.  The  complexity  of  the  social  conflict  is 
perhaps  nowhere  more  observable  than  in  connection  with  the 
phenomena  of  capital.  So  soon  as  the  artisan,  the  small  trader, 
the  farmer,  the  wage-laborer,  has  a  few  dollars  saved  and  put 
at  interest,  he  is  henceforth,  like  Desdemona,  perplexed  by  a 
double  duty.  In  spite  of  himself,  he  is  now  in  league  with 
interests  hostile  to  his  primary  and  chief  interest.  He  is  a 
laborer  or  a  trader,  in  either  case  a  laborer ;  but  in  so  far  as  he 


270  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

saves  the  earnings  of  labor  or  trade,  and  invests  them,  he  is  a 
capitaHst.  As  a  capitalist  he  wants  that  which,  as  a  laborer  or 
a  trader,  he  opposes.  The  working  balance  between  these  con- 
flicting claims  in  the  same  persons  has  been  represented  at 
times  by  the  legally  punishable  limit  of  usury,  at  other  times  by 
the  customary  rate  of  bank  discount,  and  again  by  the  down- 
ward pressure  upon  wages.  The  fact,  however,  that  all  posses- 
sors of  capital,  whether  in  large  or  small  amounts,  really  form  a 
contending  political  element  in  the  State,  emerges  very  dis- 
tinctly in  case  a  large  debtor,  say  the  State  itself,  proposes  to 
scale  down  the  rate  of  interest  promised  when  the  loan  was 
made.  Then  large  and  small  creditors  join  as  one  man  against 
the  failure  to  observe  the  terms  of  the  contract.  All  resort  to 
every  legal  means  within  their  reach,  and  even  to  revolution- 
ary means,  to  hold  the  State  to  its  pledged  obligations. ,. 

At  this  point  we  bring  to  view  the  line  of  division  between 
politics  proper,  in  the  modern  sense,  and  the  primitive  activity 
of  the  State  as  protector  of  the  lives  of  all.  I.  e.^whensoever 
the  machinery  of  the  State  begins  to  be  used  to  protect  one 
interest  within  the  State  against  another,  from  that  moment 
mischief  is  afoot.^  The  Pandora's  box  of  political  evils  is  wide- 
open.  The  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  political  good 
and  evil  has  been  tasted.  Henceforth  the  life  of  the  State  is 
a  series  of  rapes  of  the  law  by  the  interest  or  interests  within 
the  State  temporarily  able  to  control  the  civic  power.  For 
weal  or  for  woe,  for  better  or  for  worse,  justly  or  unjustly, 
the  State  lends  itself  to  the  protection  and  promotion,  now  of 
this  interest,  now  of  that,  according  as  one  or  the  other  pre- 
vails for  the  time  over  the  rest.  The  reality  or  the  fiction  of 
general  interests  comes  into  use,  to  justify  the  preferment  of 
certain  claims,  assumed  to  be  those  of  the  public,  over  others, 
classified  as  those  of  individuals.  "  Considerations  of  public 
policy" — i.  e.,  in  plain  language,  the  interests  of  those  persons 
or  classes  that  have^cquired  the  balance  of  power  in  the  State 
—  constrain  the  administration  to  protect  the  interests  of  that 
portion  of  capital  which  is  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  few, 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       271 

and  which  is  consequently  available  for  application  on  a  large 
scale.  That  is,  there  comes  a  time  when  the  pseudo-class, 
capital,  differentiates  the  derived  pseudo-class,  massed  capital. 

One  is  always  tempted  to  indulge  in  large  generalization 
at  such  a  point  as  this;  one  feels  like  offering  a  formula  of  the 
relation  of  governments  in  general  to  the  interests  of  concen- 
trated capital.  One  would  like  to  be  able  to  say :  As  .r  is  to 
3;,  so  is  administrative  favoritism  to  the  bulk  of  capital  con- 
cerned. We  must  resist  the  temptation,  for  no  such  simple 
formula  will  suffice.  Whether  any  law  may  later  be  made  out 
or  not,  our  plan  calls  at  present  merely  for  analysis  of  the  fact 
of  distinct  interests,  always  more  or  less  hostile,  within  the 
State.  We  have  to  point  out  the  fact  that  massed  capital  actu- 
ally does  react  in  such  peculiar  ways  among  the  rival  interests 
within  the  State  that  its  distinctness  as  a  political  factor  must 
not  be  overlooked.  {  Administrations  inevitably  begin  to  con- 
strue the  law  to  the  advantage  of  concentrated  capital.  The 
most  familiar  illustration  is  the  use  which  capital  devoted  to 
railroad  construction  has  been  permitted  to  make  of  the  right 
of  eminent  domain,  and  of  peculiar  charter  privileges.  From 
earliest  to  latest  civic  history,  States  have  found  it  expedient 
to  encourage  commerce,  to  assist  in  the  accumulation  of  treas- 
ure, to  promote  industry  on  a  large  scale.  All  of  these  create 
sinews  of  State  power.  In  order  to  conciliate  the  capitalistic 
interests,  and  to  have  their  aid  in  case  the  administration  has 
special  occasion  for  the  use  of  money,  it  has  always  been  cus- 
tomary to  practice  some  sort  of  special  promotion  of  their 
interests,  as  by  monopolies,  privileges,  and  peculiar  rights  to 
economic  resources.  All  of  these  arrangements,  of  course, 
react  in  the  way  of  placing  all  branches  of  labor,  by  so  much, 
in  a  tributary  relation  to  the  favored  capitalistic  interests.^ 
Tt  may  nevertheless  be  impossible  to  show  this  in  an  individual 
case  before  the  courts. 

The  preferment  of  capital,  and  the  involved  handicapping 

-  Vide,  on  the  other  side,  a  series  of  articles  in  Harper's  Weekly, 
November-December,  1903,  on  "  The  Strangle  Hold  of  Labor." 


272  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  labor,  is  somewhat  analogous  with  the  inevitable  over- 
payment of  brain  labor  as  compared  with  manual  labor.  The 
former  must  be  had,  and  in  order  to  have  it,  specially  favorable 
conditions  must  be  provided.  Brains  cannot  work  to  good 
advantage,  as  a  rule,  in  conditions  which  would  suffice  for 
development  of  the  maximum  muscular  power  of  manual 
laborers.  So  with  large  capital,  though  of  course  in  particu- 
lars that  are  not  suggested  by  the  analogy,  "v, Capital  must 
have  certain  security,  certain  prerogatives,  certain  scope,  cer- 
tain powers  to  override  the  will  of  single  individuals.  Now, 
it  is  always  an  ethical  question  whether  the  game  is  worth  the 
candle :  whether  the  things  gained  by  the  power  of  capital  are 
worth  to  the  whole  State  what  they  may  cost  individual  mem- 
bers of  the  State.  This  is  not  at  present  our  concern.  We 
are  now  merely  trying  to  see  exactly  how  the  wheels  do  go 
round ;  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  make  out  this  monster  driving- 
wheel  of  massed  capital  always  to  a  certain  extent  deflecting 
the  other  interests  within  the  State  from  their  peculiar  course. 
This  influence  of  massed  capital  may  not  be  discoverable  and 
definable  in  the  case  of  individuals.  It  is  instinctively  per- 
ceived, or  at  least  suspected,  by  an  almost  unerring  political 
instinct. 

When  we  call  the  instinct  unerring,  however,  we  must 
qualify  the  statement  by  adding  that  its  inerrancy  does  not 
go  beyond  discovery  of  the  fact  itself.  '^  In  a  capitalistic  society 
there  is  almost  universal  perception  that  property  interests  are 
more  jealously  guarded  than  any  of  the  interests  in  which 
property  is  secondary.  ;  People  are  aware  that  capital  is  the 
arbiter  of  legislation.  At  the  same  time,  they  may  exaggerate 
and  distort  the  part  which  capital  plays,  and  may  wholly  mis- 
judge its  total  effect  upon  other  interests.  These  considera- 
tions are  all  in  point  when  we  are  examining  selected  social 
situations,  or  dealing  with  particular  social  problems.  They 
are  not  prime  factors  in  fundamental  analysis  of  the  social 
process. 

Meanwhile   we   may   further  observe    certain    prominent 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       273 

characteristics  of  the  capitaHstic  interests.^  The  capitahst 
is  prone  to  deny  the  soft  impeachment,  whenever  he  is  accused 
of  legal  or  moral  wrong  in  advancing  capitalistic  interests. 
He  is  sustained  by  an  unfaltering  sense  of  support  by  the 
State,  and  he  comes  to  feel  that  honor  and  emolument  go,  in 
the  case  of  his  class  at  least,  where  honor  and  emolument  are 
due.  Because  the  capitalist  wants  the  continued  favor  of  the 
State,  it  is  for  his  interest  that  public  measures  should  always 
maintain  programs  to  which  the  capitalist  will  be  indis- 
pensable. It  is  for  his  interest  that  the  State  shall  always  be 
in  need  of  money.  He  is  interested  in  promoting  vast  under- 
takings far  ahead  of  effective  demand,  except  that  stimulated 
by  capitalistic  instincts.!  Capital  is  tempted  to  promote  excess- 
ive and  artificial  commerce,  overproduction  at  certain  points, 
overpopulation  at  others.  '  In  these  artificial  conditions,  capital 
is  sure  to  find  employment.  It  can  exert  its  monopolies,  collect 
its  interest,  control  its  incidental  losses,  and  make  them  fall 
most  heavily  on  the  class  of  small  capital  or  the  various  labor 
interests. 

We  may  notice  also  that  capital  is  capable,  like  the  strictly 
personal  interests  engaged  in  the  social  conflict,  of  conscious 
and  premeditated  wrong.  We  need  not  interpret  the  capital- 
istic mind  as  being  an  exception,  psychologically,  to  the  ordi- 
nary workings  of  human  judgment.  Very  few  men  distinctly 
say  to  themselves:  "This  is  wrong,  therefore  I  will  do  it." 
Most  men  say  to  themselves :  "  What  I  propose  to  do  rates  as 
wrong  in  some  people's  minds.  I  am  superior  to  their  opinion. 
For  me  it  shall  be  right."  And  forthwith  men  go  on  their 
egoistic  way  under  the  stimulus  of  a  certain  virtuous  exhilara- 
tion. The  capitalist  is  no  exception  to  this  rule;  and  the 
pressing  problems  of  modern  States  all  involve  the  question : 
To  what  extent  have  we  entangled  ourselves  in  policies  unwar- 
rantably catering  to  capitalistic  selfishness  ?  It  is  very  certain 
that  all  the  grievances  alleged  by  other  interests  against  capi- 
tal are  not  imaginary.     They  are  by  no  means  all  merely  the 

'  Loc.  cit.,  p.  172. 


274  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

necessary  pressure  of  wholesome  social  growth  upon  the  units 
affected  by  the  growth.  The  nobility,  at  various  periods  of 
history,  succeeded  in  freeing  themselves  from  proportionate 
public  burdens.  In  the  same  way,  massed  capital  today  has 
many  ways  of  collecting  all  its  dues,  and  of  avoiding  large 
shares  of  its  liabilities.  The  sting  of  the  social  situation  in 
countries  like  ours  today  is  not  so  much  the  fact  of  unequal 
possessions,  as  the  belief  that  these  inequalities  are  partially 
due  to  evasion  of  just  and  legal  responsibilities.  The  plain 
people  are  uneasy  when  they  suspect  that  government  itself 
is  made  the  tool  by  which  these  evasions,  and  even  deliberate 
plunderings,  are  accomplished. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  speak  at  length  of  the  parallel  situation 
in  the  case  of  the  other  pseudo-classes  —  massed  manufacture, 
so  far  as  it  may  be  distinguished  from  massed  capital,  and 
massed  landownership.  In  each  case  these  interests  clash 
immediately  with  those  of  the  small  operator  in  the  same  field, 
and  there  are  analogous  incidents  of  use  and  abuse  of  rela- 
tionship with  the  civic  power  in  pushing  the  massed  interests. 

We  seem  to  encounter  a  different  order  of  phenomena  when 
we  turn  to  the  rank  interests.  These  are  of  relatively  little 
concern  to  Americans,  except  as  we  study  comparative  condi- 
tions in  other  States.  In  brief,  however,  the  fact  is  that  politi- 
cally recognized  social  ranks  are  merely  the  survivals  of  suc- 
cessful struggle  for  advantage  in  respect  to  the  primary  inter- 
ests. Men  have  tried  to  get  the  power  of  the  civic  and 
economic  order  permanently  allied  with  themselves  and  their 
descendants,  so  that  they  would  not  be  liable  to  the  extremes  of 
competition  for  means  of  subsistence,  or  for  means  of  main- 
taining a  relatively  advanced  standard  of  life.  The  larger 
the  rights  and  customary  claims  of  a  rank  in  society,  the 
farther  they  seem  to  be  from  any  relation  at  all  to  primary 
needs.  On  the  other  hand,  the  people  with  the  fewest  privi- 
leges in  the  State  seem  to  be  concerned  about  those  necessities 
of  life  alone  to  which  the  ranks  are  indifferent.  The  truth 
is,   however,   that   this    indifference    is    merely   the    result  of 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       275 

assured  provision  of  the  fundamental  needs.  The  ranks  have 
found  a  way  of  taking  care  of  those  preHminaries,  so  that  they 
can  devote  themselves  to  something  else.  The  masses  are 
necessarily  devoted  to  these  fundamentals,  because  daily  labor 
alone  will  secure  them  their  daily  bread.  What  the  masses 
must  secure  by  the  hand-to-mouth  process,  the  ranks  have  pro- 
vided, for  by  means  of  their  privileged  situation  in  the  State. 
In  short,  rank,  seen  from  the  side  of  the  individual  interests 
that  culminate  in  it,  is  genetically  a  labor-saving  device,  and 
is  strictly  a  concession  to  the  desire  to  escape  disagreeable 
exertion.  Seen  from  the  side  of  the  social  interests  that 
express  themselves  by  sanctioning  rank,  it  is  an  attempt  to 
secure  certain  types  of  social  efficiency.  (  Every  social  rank 
strives,^  consciously  or  unconsciously,  to  assure  its  relative 
position  in  the  economic  and  political  process,  so  that,  on  the 
one  hand,  it  may  not  sink  back  into  the  mass  struggling  for 
daily  bread,  and  so  that,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  have  secure 
footing  upon  which  to  reach  out  after  higher  interests. 

Whatever  be  the  form  of  civic  societies,  each  of  them  tends 
to  stratification  into  the  same  essential  components.  There 
are  always,  either  developed  or  developing,  three  chief  groups : 
(i)  the  privileged;  (2)  the  middle  class;  (3)  those  without 
property,  rights,  or  influence.  This  stratification  takes  place 
at  first  not  politically,  but  industrially.  After  people  have 
attained  some  degree  of  economic  prosperity,  they  attempt  to 
assure  their  position  by  action  in  political  groups  composed  of 
people  similarly  situated.  They  try  to  make  their  economic 
advantage  permanent  by  surrounding  themselves  with  insti- 
tutional protection,  or  by  providing  themselves  with  means  of  X 
defeating  encroachments  on  the  part  of  envious  neighbors. 
We  discover  the  beginnings  of  this  process  the  moment 
nomads  settle  in  permanent  abodes.  The  individuals  who  act 
as  umpires  or  referees  in  quarrels,  who  lead  in  battle  or  in 
religious  rites,  try  to  secure  their  place  for  themselves  and 
their  families.  They  may  build  up  castes.  They  may  succeed 
only  to  the  extent  of  establishing  hereditary  offices.  In  all  cases 


276  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  same  principle  is  at  work.  On  the  other  hand,  the  State 
includes  individuals  who  have  neither  skill  nor  power  nor 
influence.  These  are  gradually  relegated  by  the  others  to  per- 
manent exclusion  from  the  advantages  of  which  the  earliest 
skilled  and  powerful  and  influential  had  taken  possession  for 
their  descendants. 

In  the  third  and  fourth  stage  of  development  of  the  politi- 
cal struggle,  these  two  strata  in  the  original  stock  are 
increased  by  the  addition  of  the  subject,  or  slave,  stratum, 
taken  in  from  conquered  peoples.  With  this  development 
we  have  the  completed  structure  of  ancient  society,  viz. :  first, 
the  influential,  dominant  rank;  second,  the  free  rank;  third, 
the  slave  rank.  Under  the  influence  of  various  circumstances, 
of  which  Christianity  was  probably  most  decisive,  chattel  slav- 
ery was  at  length  abolished,  but  the  lowest  stratum  remained 
relatively  strangers  to  property,  rights,  or  influence.  It  was 
only  within  the  nineteenth  century  that  these  strata  obtained 
real  political  standing  as  recognized  factors  in  European 
States. 

This  process  of  adjusting,  and  even  approximately  equaliz- 
ing, ranks  is  constantly  going  on  as  one  of  the  incidents  of  the 
social  process.  On  the  other  hand,  stratification  of  ranks  is 
at  the  same  time  always  and  necessarily  present.  We  find 
societies  which  seem  to  be  homogeneous  masses.  They  have 
not  developed  visible  structure.  One  man  is  apparently  just 
what  every  other  man  is.  Even  in  comparatively  late  times, 
approaches  to  this  situation  are  found,  under  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances; e.  g.,  the  members  of  our  American  colonies  at 
the  earliest  periods  of  settlement;  the  citizens  of  the  French 
Republic,  say  from  1789  to  1793;  the  pioneers  in  California 
in  1849.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  even  in  these  cases  there 
was  a  certain  division  of  functions,  and  a  certain  embryonic 
stratification. 

Whether  the  division  into  ranks  is  clear  or  obscure,  every 
'  society,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  if  it  is  in  health,  presently 
V  betrays   distinct   tendencies   toward   differentiation   of   ranks. 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       277 

There  is  a  constant  struggle  against  the  prestige  and  privilege 
of  those  in  superior  social  positions,  on  the  part  of  those  in 
lower  positions.  From  the  non-influential  stratum  a  middle 
rank  is  always  developing,  and  from  this  middle  rank  a  quota 
is  always  forcing  its  way  up  into  the  privileged  rank.  The 
interest  of  the  privileged  rank  is  to  keep  its  members  as  lim- 
ited as  possible.  To  this  end  institutional  devices  are  invented, 
such  as  nobilities,  aristocracies,  patriciates,  corporations  of 
various  kinds,  like  those  of  feudalism,  chivalry,  ecclesiasti- 
cism,  etc. 

In  addition  to  these,  arrangements  of  less  rigid  and  legal 
sort  are  devised  —  modes  of  behavior  and  other  externalities' 
which  serve  to  separate  the  sheep  from  the  goats.     Species  of 
this  genus  are  forms  of  social  intercourse,   styles  of  dress, 
amusements ;  in  short,  the  whole  realm  of  fashion.^ 

Ratzenhofer  ventures  the  thesis  that  fashion  is  primarily 
not  an  affair  of  aesthetic  taste  at  all,  nor  yet  of  love  of  novelty, 
but  of  politics :  an  incident  and  a  means  of  social  struggle. 
It  is  a  method  which  the  privileged  adopt  to  make  it  difficult 
to  intrude  upon  their  preserves.^  The  middle  rank  has  no 
firm  bond  of  coherence,  because  its  members  seize  every  oppor- 
tunity to  become,  or  seem  to  become,  members  of  the  upper 
rank.  They  are  likely,  in  consequence  of  this  tendency,  to  be 
constant  traitors  to  their  own  class.  The  lower  strata  are 
usually  inclined  to  deny  their  separateness  as  a  rank ;  yet  they 
constantly  confront  a  condition  of  unsuccessful  and  exas- 
perating rivalry  with  the  middle  class.  Consciousness  of  this 
situation  spurs  them,  at  irregular  intervals,  to  spasmodic  class 
eruptions  for  violent  adjustment  of  opportunities. 

We  may  simply  name,  in  passing,  a  specific  differentiation 
of  the  rank  interest,  viz. :  the  dynastic  interest.  Although  it 
has  played  a  tremendously  important  role  in  history,  we  may 
restrict  ourselves  to  bare  recognition  of  it  in  the  catalogue  of 
social  factors.®     More  important  in  modern  times,  and  par- 

*  Vide  Veblen,  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class. 

'Wesen  und  Zweck,  p.   175,  ^  Loc.  cit.,  p.  178. 


278  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

ticularly  in  America,  is  what  we  have  called  the  corporate 
interest?  We  must  remember  that  we  are  engaged  in  a  teleo- 
logical  analysis  of  the  social  process,  not  a  structural  or 
merely  a  functional  analysis.  We  are  singling  out  separate 
interests,  which  create  structure  and  stimulate  function.  At 
the  same  time,  these  interests  combine  in  countless  ways,  and 
thus  run  across  the  structures  which  they  produce.  The  con- 
tent of  the  interests  has  been  chiefly  in  mind,  therefore,  in  our 
previous  classification.  The  present  detail  is  rather  a  form 
which  nearly  all  the  foregoing  interests  may  take.  That  is, 
(  people  who  are  pursuing  identical  or  even  similar  purposes 
tend  to  recognize  themselves  as  composing  a  body  in  society,  ■ 
distinguished  by  their  interest,  whatever  it  may  be,  from  the 
rest  of  society.  They  are  likely  to  keep  that  interest  in  mind, 
and  to  stimulate  in  each  other  attention  to  the  interest.  For 
instance,  what  we  mean  would  be  illustrated  by  the  feeling 
which  members  of  the  criminal  classes  have  for  each  other. 
Criminality  is  essentially  unsocial.  Criminals  work  in  as  small 
groups  as  possible.  Yet  each  criminal  feels  a  measure  of  fel- 
lov/ship  with  all  other  known  criminals,  and  of  antagonism 
with  the  law-abiding  portions  of  society.  Other  illustrations 
are  the  teaching  body ;  the  clerical  body ;  the  civil-service 
body;  the  military,  medical,  legal,  and  naval  professions; 
employers;    employees;    etc,    etc. 

After  all,  this  enumeration  of  interests  is  so  general  that 
it  would  have  to  be  accurately  particularized  before  it  would 
be  of  service  in  solving  actual  social  prol)lcms,  or  even  in 
stating  the  precise  terms  of  actual  social  situations.  Such  a 
list  as  we  have  given  is  valuable,  as  far  as  it  goes ;  but  when 
we  come  to  deal  with  the  problems  of  civic  progress  in  New 
York,  or  the  problem  of  pedagogical  reform  in  Chicago,  or 
the  problem  of  economic  or  political  reform  in  Russia,  we 
find  that  the  situation  has  its  setting  within  this  general 
scheme  of  interests,   to  be  sure;    but  we  also  find  that  the 

'  Loc.  cil.,  i>.  i8i. 


TYPES  OF  ANTAGONISTIC  INTERESTS  IN  STATES       279 


\ 


decisive  interests  are  much  more  specific,  and  that  these  which 
we  have  enumerated  are  merely  generic. 

Both  commonwealths  and  communities  develop  peculiar 
interests,  some  of  them  merely  differentiations  of  those  that 
we  have  named,  others  more  conveniently  treated  as  distinct 
orders  of  interests;  e.  g.,  the  university  interest  in  Germany. 
On  account  of  the  tradition  of  academic  freedom,  the  uni- 
versities are  in  a  sense  and  degree  exotic  and  independent  — 
in,  but  not  of,  the  general  fabric  of  the  State.  In  a  word, 
Lculture  everywhere  in  turn  produces  and  destroys  manifesta- 
tions of  interest,  as,  for  instance,  the  race  interest  in  modern 
States.  All  of  these  interests,  including  the  possible  aims 
of  particularly  powerful  individuals  in  the  State,  are  expres- 
sions of  struggle  impulses.  They  are  indexes  of  the  parties 
implicitly  and  actually  in  conflict,  as  well  as  in  co-operation, 
within  the  State.  The  initial  task  of  the  practical  sociologist 
must  always  be  to  distinguish  the  operative  interests  in  the 
society  with  which  he  is  concerned,  and  then  to  make  out  an 
approximate  scale  of  proportions  in  which  the  interests  are 
effective. 

\  The  practical  sociologist  must  also  know  how  to  classify 
operative  interests  in  the  State  according  as  they,  on  the 
whole,  make  for  socialization  or  for  unsociability,^  under  the 
circumstances  with  which  he  is  specifically  concerned.  Every 
interest  is,  in  the  first  instance,  exclusive.  It  strives  for  self- 
realization,  and  by  so  much  resists  the  realization  of  conflict- 
ing interests.  .  The  social  problem  is  to  give  freest  scope  to 
those  interests  zvhich  actually  require  for  their  realization  the 
largest  sum  of  other  interests. 

The  negative  statement  of  the  same  thing,  or  at  least  a 
negative  factor  in  the  same  process,  may  be  expressed  in  this 
way :  The  social  problem  is  to  defeat  all  interests  zvhich,  in 
content  or  possibly  even  in  form,  subordinate  general  interests 
to  special  interests. 

As  an  index  of  how  to  reach  judgments  in  this  connection, 
we  may  say,  the  more  immediate  an  interest  is,  the  more  unso- 


28o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

cial  it  is.  That  is,  if  I  am  thinking  of  myself  and  my  imme- 
diate interest  in  physical  comfort,  I  shall  want  to  eat,  drink, 
and  be  merry,  regardless  of  effects  on  my  larger  self  or  on 
my  neighbors.  I  shall  be  a  viciously  unsocial  factor.  If  a 
church  is  interested  simply  in  itself  as  a  church,  with  care 
only  for  its  peculiar  type  of  edification  now,  and  forward- 
looking  to  the  triumphs  of  a  judgment  day,  when  it  can  mar- 
shal a  certain  number  of  saved  individuals  as  its  credentials, 
that  church  is  a  separatist  affair,  if  not  antagonizing,  at  least 
abandoning,  the  rest  of  society,  instead  of  helping  to  carry  on 
the  social  process. 

On  the  other  hand,  interests  are  social  in  proportion  as 
they  contemplate  themselves  as  at  their  highest  power  zvhen 
in  co-operation  with  the  social  process.  \  As  a  self-sufficient 
individual,  I  am  a  clog  in  the  social  process.  As  an  individual 
finding  my  individuality  incomplete  except  as  it  progress- 
ively completes  the  social  process,  I  am  a  part  of  the  material 
and  the  motive  that  make  society. 

A  State  is  normal  or  mature  in  proportion  as  the  interests 
operating  within  it  find  their  adjustment  and  completion  in 
the  progress  of  the  common  interest.  Each  interest  is  normal 
in  proportion  as  it  lends  itself  to  the  completion  of  the  total 
civic  interest.  These,  of  course,  are  merely  formal  statements. 
They  have  to  receive  a  content  from  criticism  of  concrete 
situations.  They  serve  to  place  political  interests  abstractly, 
however;  and  in  later  portions  of  sociological  theory  they 
become  available  as  measures  of  social  value.^ 

*  The  theorem  of  this  last  paragraph  has  been  supported,  from  a  quite 
different  point  of  view,  by  Professor  Karl  Pearson,  in  a  lecture  delivered  at 
Newcastle,  England,  November  19,  1900,  and  published  under  the  title,  National 
Life  from  the  Standpoint  of  Science.  The  main  contention  is  not  affected  one 
way  or  the  other  by  possible  defects  in  the  author's  application  of  the  principle 
to  questions  of  concrete  policy  in  the  Boer  war,  then  in  progress. 


CHAPTER   XXII 
TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE 

Reviewing  the  steps  of  our  argument,  we  have  passed 
from  the  generaHzation,  "  A  process  is  going  forward,"  to 
analysis  of  principal  elements  in  the  process.  We  have  had 
recourse  to  the  concept  of  "  interests  "  in  the  individual,  com- 
bining to  make  him  a  social  factor.  We  have  observed  the 
more  obvious  groupings  of  individuals  thus  constituted,  and 
have  noted  their  one  common  dynamic  trait,  viz. :  whether 
the  interest  in  question  is  an  elementary  individual  desire,  like 
hunger,  or  the  sex  instinct,  or  the  race-antipathy  in  a  specified 
savage ;  or  a  highly  complex  purpose,  like  the  territorial  policy 
of  an  aggressive  State;  it  is  at  bottom  exclusive,  peremptory, 
and  insistent  upon  being  satisfied.^ 

We  repeat  that,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  our  analysis  is 
and  must  be  qualitative  throughout.  We  are  not  even  attempt- 
ing to  characterize  the  precise  combination  of  qualities  pre- 
sented by  the  actual  interests  in  any  concrete  social  situation, 
because  that  is  work  for  special  rather  than  general  sociology. 
We  are  simply  saying  from  step  to  step :  "  Of  such  is  the 
social  process."  We  are  discovering  the  categories  of  all 
degrees  which  must  be  employed  if  we  think  any  portion  of 
the  social  process  as  it  is. 

It  is  proper  once  more  to  put  all  the  emphasis  possible  on 
the  key-value  of  our  results  thus  far.  In  fact,  if  sociology  has 
found  out  anything  at  all,  what  we  have  said  in  terms  of  inter- 
ests is  the  clue  to  the  whole  discovery.  To  put  it  in  the  other 
way :  when  we  fairly  have  working  use  of  this  clue,  interests, 

* "  Wie  alles  Leben,  so  ist  alle  Geschichte  ein  Kampf,  und  der  Kampf  fiihrt 
in  seinem  nachsten  Erfolge  selten  zur  Harmonic,  haufiger  zur  Unterdruckung 
des  Besiegten  und  zur  Tyrannei  des  Siegers.  So  ist  es  nicht  bloss  bei  dem 
Kampfe  der  Individuen  und  Volker,  so  ist  es  auch  bei  dem  Kampfe  der  Ideen." 
(Gierke,  Das  deutsche  Genossenschaftsrecht,  Vol.  I,  p.  2.) 

281 


282  '  •    GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

we  have  the  open  sesame  to  all  the  secrets  that  sociology  is 
likely  to  detect  for  a  long  while  to  come. 

As  we  have  said,  interests  run  back  in  one  direction  into 
the  psychological  mechanism  of  interest.  Since  analysis  of 
psychological  procedure  finds  interest  to  be  the  motor  of  the 
mechanism,  it  is  evident  that  the  psychologists  and  the  sociolo- 
gists are  confirming  each  other  in  a  promising  and  prophetic 
way.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  turn  from  psychological  or 
subjective  analysis  to  sociological  or  objective  analysis,  we 
have  no  clearer  light  to  throw  upon  the  concrete  process  of 
human  association  than  that  which  displays  it  as  a  rivalry, 
and  a  competition,  and  an  adjustment  of  interests;  the  term  ^ 
in  the  latter  case  being  used  in  the  objective  sense.  The  latest  .  / 
word  of  sociology  is  that  human  experience  yields  the  most  and 
the  deepest  meaning  when  read  from  first  to  last  in  terms  of 
the  evolution,  expression,  and  accommodation  of  interests.^ 

^  It  is  an  important  sign  of  the  times  that  the  most  distinctly  American 
school  of  history  which  has  developed  in  the  United  States  has  been  following 
this  clue.  Professor  Turner,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  has  for  nearly 
twenty  years  been  studying  American  history  in  terms  of  the  interests  which 
have  contended  with  each  other  for  political  and  industrial  power.  The  first 
monograph  to  attract  wide  notice  was  a  study  of  the  distribution  of  votes  on 
the  adoption  of  the  federal  constitution.  The  general  hypothesis  was  that  the 
farming  interests  opposed  the  constitution,  while  the  commercial  interests 
favored  it.  In  a  similar  way,  Professor  Turner  and  his  students  have  applied 
this  test  of  interests  to  American  experience  down  to  the  latest  presidential 
campaigns.  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  Turner  for  references  to  some  of  the 
more  important  of  these  studies : 

C.  McCarthy,  Anti-Masonic  Party,  Winsor  Prize  Essay  ("  American  His- 
torical Association   Reports,"    1902,  Vol.   I). 

N.  B.  Phillips,  Georgia  and  State  Rights,  Winsor  Prize  Essay  ("  American 
Historical  Association  Reports,"  1901,  Vol.  II). 

W.  A.  Schafer,  Sectionalism  and  Representation  in  South  Carolina 
j(^"  American   Historical   Association  Reports,"    1900,  Vol.   I,  pp.   237-446). 

(Professor  Turner  adds  that  both  Dr.  Phillips  and  Dr.  Schafer  completed 
their  work  as  graduate  students  at  Columbia  University.  The  traces  of  the 
influences  of  the  Wisconsin  idea  are  sufficiently  evident,  however,  in  their 
monographs.) 

T.  C.  Smith,  Liberty  and  Free  Soil  Parties  ("  Harvard  Historical  Studies," 
Vol.  VI). 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      283 

In  order  to  understand  the  economic  factors  only  in  one 
of  our  national  campaigns  since  1875,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  get  an  accurate  schedule,  lx)th  by  name  and  by  relative 
political  influence,  of  the  pecuniary  interests  that  appeared 
before  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  and  secured  recog- 
nition in  spite  of  other  interests  that  actively  opposed  them 
or  that  had  no  representation.  In  November.  1901,  a  so-called 
Reciprocity  Convention  convened  in  Washington,  It  was  a 
unique  object-lesson  in  the  antagonism  of  pecuniary  interests 
and  in  the  balancing  of  interests,  or,  as  free-traders  would 
say,  "the  conspiracy  of  interests,"  in  any  tariff.  In  that  con- 
vention it  became  evident  that  each  protected  interest  was  like 
every  other  in  wanting  to  hold  on  to  all  it  had  got,  and  in 
willingness  that  concessions  should  be  made  ad  libitum  by  all 
the  other  interests. 

In  general,  sociological  insight  is  a  matter  of  ability,  first, 
to  make  out  the  several  interests  actually  operative  in  a  given 
social  situation ;  second,  to  calculate  the  relative  force  of  the 
many  interest-factors  in  reaction  with  each  other  in  given 
concrete  situations. 

This  very  form  of  statement  implies  not  merely  that  our 
present  conceptions  of  sociological  method^ave  left  behind  the 
schematologies  of  Comte  and  Spencer  and  Schafifle,  but  that 
they, reject  in  advance  any  attempt  to  reduce  the  social  process 
to  an  operation  of  a  single  force. ^     Nor  do  we  think  of  the 

(Dr.  Smith  was  for  one  year  fellow  in  history  at  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin, but  took  his  degree  at  Harvard.) 

O.  G.  Libby,  Geographical  Distribution  of  the  Vote  of  the  Thirteen  States 
{Bulletin,  University  of  Wisconsin,  Vol.  I,  No.  i). 

Professor  Turner  has  papers  that  show  the  results  of  his  method : 
International  Monthly,  December,  1901,  Vol.  IV,  p.  794;  September,  1896, 
p.  289;  Atlantic  Monthly,  April,  1877,  Vol.  LXXIX,  p.  433;  January,  1903, 
Vol.  XCI,  p.  83. 

Dr.  Libby  has  studies  of  sectional  influence  in  smaller  areas :  Transactions 
of  the  Wisconsin  Academy,  Vol.  XIII,  p.  188;  Wisconsin  Historical  Col- 
lection, Vol.  XIII,  pp.  330  ff. 

^  For  instance,  in  the  sense  in  which  Marx  and  his  followers  predicate 
"  the  materialistic  interpretation  of  history  "  —  if,  indeed,  they  can  be  pinned 


284  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

social  process  as  chiefly  the  operation  of  any  sort  of  machinery. 
It  is  rather  the  formation  and  action  of  human  feeHngs,  wants, 
purposes,  for  which  the  machinery  merely  serves  as  a  medium. 
The  social  process  is  a  drama  of  hiunan  endeavors  to  express 
the  whole  gamut  of  interests,  zvhile  every  effort  toward  expres- 
sion tends  incessantly  to  impart  to  each  interest  a  new  variant 
force. 

This  last  qualification  is  important  as  a  preliminary  to  the 
analysis  that  follows.  In  spite  of  ourselves,  in  such  a  general 
survey  as  this  we  must  describe  the  social  process  very  largely 
in  terms  of  the  mechanism  of  the  process,  rather  than  of  the 
content  of  the  process.  We  are  in  danger  of  stopping  short, 
after  all,  with  mere  analysis  of  instruments,  or  channels  of 
forces,  instead  of  pressing  on  to  inspection  of  the  spiritual 
forces  themselves  that  use  the  visible  devices.  As  a  partial 
corrective  of  this  tendency  we  insist  again  that  every  motion 
in  the  social  process  is  merely  an  index  of  some  variation  of 
human  interest  which  is  behind  the  motion,  and  attempting  to 
get  a  better  leverage  wherewith  to  vindicate  itself.  Our  atten- 
tion to  the  visible  motions  is  merely  a  means  of  approaching 
the  view-point  from  which  it  will  be  easy  to  inspect  the  spirit- 
ual reality  that  impels  the  motion. 

With  this  understanding,  we  proceed  to  notice  some  of 
the  more  obvious  ways  in  which  certain  orders  of  interests 
express  themselves.  We  are  still  dealing  with  interests  that 
figure  in  civic  experience. 

Ratzenhofer's  plan  of  analyzing  the  social  process,  first  in 
its  conflict  phase,  may  be  indicated  by  the  following  scheme :  ^ 

I.    The  Phenomena  of  Parties  in  the  State  (Sec.  19). 

A.  The  composition  of  parties. 

B.  Molecular  changes  in  parties. 

C.  Party  affinities. 

D.  The  fighting  strength  of  parties. 

down  to  a  precise  meaning  for  the  i)hrase.  Cf.  Masaryk,  Die  Grundlagen  des 
Marxismus,  pp.  52-168. 

*  With  slight  variations,  this  is  a  literal  abstract  from  the  table  of  contents 
of  Wesen  und  Zweck. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     285 

E.  The  relation  of  party  programs  to  fighting  strength. 

F.  The  "  desperate  "  vs.  the  "  radical." 

G.  Stability  of  parties. 

H.  The  fundamental  antagonism  of  parties. 
I.     The     dissimilarities  of  parties. 
J.     "  Open  "  vs.  "  secret  "  parties. 
K.  The  party  the  fulcrum  of  interests. 
2.   The  Interdependence  of  Political  Bodies  in  the  State  (Sec.  20). 

A.  The  political  significance  of  the  government. 

B.  The  State  vs.  the  government. 

C.  The  administration  as  a  party  in  conflict. 

a)  The  ultimate  sources  of  political  power. 

b)  Despotism  the  veto  of  politics. 

c)  The  reaction  of  popular  interests  upon  despotism. 

d)  Law  a  stimulus  of  latent  civic  power. 

e)  Constitutional  law  shifts  the  basis  of  morality. 

f)  Constitutional  law  an  implied  equilibrium  of  interests. 

g)  Distinction    in    principle    between    absolute    and    constitutional 
State. 

h)   Governmental  varieties  under  the  two  forms. 
i)   Partisanship  of  governments  under  constitutional  forms, 
(i)   Partisanship  of  dynasties. 

(2)  Partisanship  of  armies. 

(3)  Partisanship  of  civic  officials. 
/)   Partisanship  of  religious  bodies. 
k)   Partisanship  of  aristocracies. 

/)   Partisanship  of  economic  classes. 
(i)  Landed  property. 

(2)  Handicrafts. 

(3)  Manufacture. 

(4)  Capital. 

(5)  Trade. 

(6)  The  submerged  classes. 
m)  Summary. 

3.  The  Principal  Parties  in  the  State  and  their  Dynamic  Rela- 
tions  (Sec.  21). 

A.  Integration  of  interests  by  compromise. 

B.  Resulting  tri-partite  organization  of  the  State. 

C.  The  political  reasons  for  compromise. 

D.  Subordinate  reasons   for  compromise. 

E.  Degrees  of  factional  attachment  to  parties. 

F.  Variations  of  factional  influence  in  parties. 


286  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

G.  The  Zeitgeist  as  a  distinct  political  factor. 
H.  Summary. 

4.  Political  Leadership   (Sec.  22). 

5.  The  Governing  Idea  of  Political  Groups   (Sec.  23). 

6.  Ambiguity  as  a  Means  of  Political  Struggle  (Sec.  29). 

7.  Terrorism  as  a  Campaign  Device  (Sec.  30). 

8.  The  Time  Element  in  Social  Struggle  (Sec.  33). 

9.  Political  Tactics   (Sec.  34). 

10.  The  Tactical  Results  of  Success  or  Failure  (Sec.  35). 

11.  Review  and  Summary   (Sec.  36). 

To  restate  our  valuation  of  Ratzenhofer's  work :  It  is 
the  most  comprehensive  sketch  of  plans  and  specifications  for 
objective  analysis  of  the  whole  social  process,  considered  as 
an  interplay  of  interests,  that  has  thus  far  been  offered.  It 
does  not  complete  the  task  of  interpreting  the  social  process, 
but  it  goes  farther  than  any  previous  attempt  toward  fairly 
beginning  the  work  of  interpretation.  For  the  present  it  is 
best  worthy  of  all  the  schemes  in  sight  to  serve  as  a  pioneer 
survey  upon  which  to  base  more  critical  study  of  concrete 
social  situations.  Each  title  in  the  foregoing  schedule  may  be 
regarded  as  a  demand  for  a  specific  investigation.  Ratzenhofer 
has  done  his  part  toward  the  necessary  inquiry.  He  has  formu- 
lated propositions  under  each  title  which  may  stand  as  tenta- 
tive conclusions  until  superseded.  In  the  resume  that  follows 
we  attempt  to  indicate  rather  the  nature  of  the  relationships 
in  question  than  the  particular  theorems  about  them  which 
Ratzenhofer  has  proposed. 

The  interests  that  lodge  in  the  individuals  who  compose 
a  State  sooner  or  later  prompt  those  individuals  to  form 
^  groups  within  the  State,  in  promotion  of  common  purposes, 
by  offense  and  defense  against  opposing  or  retarding  interests. 
In  general,  we  may  call  the  contacts  between  these  groups  the 
relations  of  parties.^  The  term  "  parties "  for  the  present 
includes  such  minor  groupings  as  factions,  cliques,  coteries, 
cabals,  which  are  distinct  factors  in  the  rivalry  of  interests 
within  the  State.     These  groups,  larger  or  smaller,  vary  in 

'■'  "  The  Phenomena  of  Parties  in  the  State,"   Wesen  und  Zweck,  sec.   19. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     287 

their  harmony  or  disharmony  with  the  main  interest  of  the 
State,  and  thus  in  their  stabihty  or  instabihty. 

I,  A.  The  composition  of  parties. —  The  partisans  are  the 
atoms,  so  to  speak,  which  combine,  by  virtue  of  affinity  of 
interests,  to  form  the  groups  (molecules).  In  the  party,  how- 
ever, the  individuality  even  of  the  single  person  always  tends 
to  assert  itself.*^  The  history  of  social  movements  within 
creedal  parties  illustrates  the  universal  principle.  Dissent,  if 
not  schism,  is  always  present,  though  perhaps  impotent. 
Moreover,  every  interest  intermediate  between  food  and  creed 
may  act  as  a  variant  of  the  individuals  within  the  party. 

I,  B.  Molecular  changes  in  parties. —  There  is  no  con- 
stant structure  or  status  of  the  molecules,  for  reasons  sug- 
gested under  the  last  head.  There  is  incessant  movement  of 
the  individuals.  (  When  interests  which  earlier  had  less  influ- 
ence within  the  party  come  to  have  more  influence,  the  party 
bond  may  no  longer  hold  them  together;  what  the  chemists 
call  a  decomposition  occurs.  (The  split  of  the  Jacobins  into 
the  Radicals  and  the  Feuillants.)  A  new  political  situation 
follows,  since  these  changes  in  one  party  react  more  or  less 
upon  all  the  contemporary  parties.'^ 

I,  C.  Party  affinities. —  The  bond  of  union  of  a  party  is 
always  to  a  certain  extent  double;  viz.:  first  negative  —  i.  e., 
absence  of  demands  of  the  individuals  upon  each  other,  or, 
otherwise  expressed,  refraining  of  the  members  from  crossing 
each  other's  interests;  second,  positive  —  i.  e.,  all  the  mem- 
bers must  be  interested  in  acting  together  to  get  something 
that  they  do  not  want  to  miss.  ("The  cohesive  power  of  pub- 
lic plunder.")  ^   This  agreement  of  purposes  among  the  indi- 

'  Contra  Gumplowicz,  Grundriss  der  Sociologie. 

''  Throughout  this  discussion  variations  of  the  term  "  politics  "  connote  all 
sorts  of  contact  of  interests  within  the  State  —  "politics"  in  the  Greek 
sense,   rather  than   in  the  modern  usage. 

°  In  an  earlier  portion  of  his  discussion  Ratzenhofer  introduced  two  terms, 
ere  of  which  we  have  already  explained  ;  cf.  p.  237  above.  They  do  not  mean 
much  to  the  American  reader  unless  he  is  familiar  with  the  vocabulary  of 
German  political  philosophy.     These  two  terms,  however,  stand  for  important 


288  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

viduals  in  parties  is  rare,  except  upon  the  basis  of  the  same 
political  principle,  and  usually  also  upon  the  basis  of  the  same 
political  system.  (Thus  in  ecclesiastical  parties,  papacy, 
episcopacy,  presbytery,  congregation,  etc.)  It  is  therefore  of 
prime  importance  for  leaders  of  parties  to  understand  whether 
an  interest  has  a  progressive  or  a  retrogressive  tendency,  and 
which  principles  in  the  party  are  represented.  The  character 
which  the  party  stands  for  in  principle  is  determined  by  the 
nature  of  its  interest,  and,  as  a  rule,  is  easily  recognized.  So 
soon,  however,  as  it  comes  to  a  question  of  action  in  detail,  it 
is  impossible  to  assume  that  the  principle  represented  by  the 
interest  in  question  will  be  completely  decisive.  (For  instance, 
the  Republican  party  in  the  United  States  is  supposed  to  stand 
for  the  federal  principle,  and  the  Democratic  party  for  local 
sovereignty  —  autonomy.  Analysis  of  arguments  and  votes 
in  the  Senate  during  the  last  two  or  three  sessions  would  tend 
to  show  that  the  idea  lacks  much  of  precision.) 

I  Every  political  party  may  temporarily  adopt  tactics  that 
make  against  the  fundamental  tendencies  of  the  party/ 
(Jefferson's  Louisiana  Purchase;  Cleveland's  Venezuela  pol- 
icy; nineteenth-century  liberal  legislation  by  the  Conserva- 
tives in  England;  etc.,  etc.).  i^At  the  same  time,  the  "system" 
which  is  relied  upon  in  general  as  the  means  of  a  party  is  a 
more  uncertain  platform  for  the  unity  of  a  party  than  its  more 
fundamental  "principle."  (For  instance,  the  feudal  and  cleri- 
cal parties  in  Austria  support  the  national  parties  in  their 
struggles  for  autonomy  only  in  a  half-hearted  fashion,  while 
they  stand  together  as  reliable  allies  toward  each  other;  both 
being  reactionary  and  retrogressive  parties.) 

I,  D.   The  fighting  strength  of  parties. —  If  we  can  find 

social  categories.  First,  political  principles,  for  which  we  may  substitute 
the  term  "  tendencies  "  and  not  go  far  astray.  Four  political  tendencies  or 
principles  are  distinguished  by  Ratzenhofer,  viz.:  (i)  the  progressive,  (2)  the 
retrogressive,  (2)  the  moderate,  (4)  the  radical.  Second,  political  "sys- 
tems," i.  e.,  the  mode  of  putting  the  political  principle  in  action;  viz.:  (i) 
autonomy,  (2)  centralisation,  (3)  federation.  With  this  explanation  the  next 
proposition  is  intelligible. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      289 

out,  in  a  given  case,  the  party  conditions,  with  the  interests 
which  create  them,  and  the  poHtical  situation,  we  have  in 
those  facts  a  certain  measure  of  the  relative  power,  or  fighting 
strength,  of  parties.  Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  believe  that 
we  may  form  a  final  conclusion  as  to  the  probable  success  of  a 
party  from  these  factors.  (The  fighting  strength  of  a  party  — 
i.  e.,  its  actual  force  in  the  social  reaction  —  depends  not 
merely  upon  the  number  of  its  adherents  and  the  wealth  or  the 
logic  at  its  command,  but  rather  upon  the  actual  force  which 
it  can  bring  to  bear  through  the  fighting  courage  that  it  can 
command  for  struggle.  By  "  fighting  strength  "  is  meant  in 
each  case  the  available  force  of  persons  who  can  be  relied  upon 
to  resort  at  last  to  extreme  measures  of  offense  and  defense 
admissible  in  the  species  of  fighting  in  question,^ 

I,  E.  The  relation  of  party  programs  to  lighting  strength. 
—  A  program  of  practical  action  will,  first,  group  factions  into 
consolidated  parties,  and,  second,  determine  the  amount  of 
their  available  energy.  The  former  element  makes  up  the 
material  extent  of  the  party;  the  latter  fixes  its  fighting 
strength.  Every  political  group,  faction,  or  party,  consid- 
ered in  itself,  possesses  a  certain  nucleus  of  fighting  force.  This 
nucleus  consists  of  those  partisans  who  will  go  to  the  last 
extreme  for  the  party  interest;  that  is,  the  irreconcilables. 
Around  this  nucleus  there  are  gathered  the  remaining  adher- 
ents of  the  party,  whose  attachment  varies  in  strength  from 
that  of  these  irreconcilables  to  almost  utter  indifference.  (^In 
every  party  there  are  certain  members  whose  devotion  to  the 
cause  might  be  symbolized  by  the  martyr's  crown;  but  the 
constancy  of  the  remainder  shades  off  toward  the  type  of  devo- 
tion which  exhausts  itself  at  five  o'clock  teas.  For  effective 
action,  party  plans  must  take  accurate  account  of  the  relative 
numbers  of  the  different  types  of  adherents. 

•  In  one  case  it  may  be  armed  force  ;  in  another,  appeal  to  the  courts ;  in 
another,  filibustering  by  a  parliamentary  minority ;  in  another,  church  schism  ; 
in  another,  scratching  from  the  calling  list ;  etc.,  etc.  The  whole  philosophy  of 
this  problem  is  correctly  represented  in  caricature  in  Mr.  Dooley  on  the  Irish 
Question. 


290  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

I,  F.  The  "Desperate"  vs.  the  "Radical." — The  nucleus 
of  irreconcilables  referred  to  above  must  not  be  confounded 
with  the  "  radicals."  The  two  types  may  be  associated,  but 
the  latter  are  by  no  means  sure  to  pursue  their  radicalism  to 
its  logical  extreme.  They  may  lack  the  courage  of  their  con- 
victions or  of  their  sympathies.^*' 

I,  G.  The  stability  of  parties. —  In  spite  of  fluctuations  of 
zeal,  changes  in  membership,  and  variations  of  surrounding 
circumstances,,  experience  proves  that  parties  and  their  group- 
ings possess  astonishing  stability. )  This  stability  grows  out  of 
the  constancy  of  needs  within  the  spheres  of  interest.  (A  party 
is  an  incarnate  want,  and  so  long  as  that  want  remains  unsat- 
isfied, or  so  long  as  the  means  of  satisfying  the  want  may  be 
attacked,  the  persistence  of  the  party,  in  some  form  or  other, 
is  assured.^ ^ 

I,  H.  The  fundamental  otitagonisni  of  parties. —  Speaking 
in  terms  of  the  essential  incompatibility  of  interests,  which  we 
have  called  "  absolute  hostility,"  there  can  in  general  be  no 
reconciliation  between  antagonistic  parties.  The  antithesis  is 
always  absolute,  and  usually  it  is  effective.  In  case  a  concilia- 
tion occurs,  it  is  the  work  of  practical  tact,  which  temporarily 
induces  grou]:>s  otherwise  hostile  to  combine  their  efforts  for 
an  end  more  immediately  desirable  than  satisfaction  of  their 
enmity.)  Social  leadership  accordingly  makes  large  demands 
upon  the  judgment  of  the  leader.  He  is  bound  to  understand 
to  a  nicety  the  interests  essential  to  his  party,  in  order  that  he 
may  know  the  limits  beyond  which  it  will  not  and  cannot  go. 

I,  I.  The  dissi)iiilarities  of  parties. —  Names  and  analogies 
are  not  to  be  trusted  as  means  of  inferring  the  traits  of  parties 

'"  For  instance,  the  Girondists  vs.  the  Jacobins ;  the  German  Kateder- 
Socialisten  vs.  the  Engels,  Bebel,  Liebknecht  type  of  political  leaders ;  the 
Irish  Home  Rulers  vs.  the  Clan-na-Gael  ;  the  Russian  Liberals  vs.  the 
Terrorists. 

"  For  example,  the  centuries  of  antagonism  between  Guclphs  and  Ghibel- 
lines,  i.  e.,  in  the  rough  the  demand  for  papal  vs.  imperial  control ;  the 
legitimists  vs.  the  modernists  in  England  and  France  ;  the  ritualists  vs.  the 
spiritualists  in  every  denomination  in  Christendom. 


( 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      291 

in  one  State  from  apparently  similar  parties  in  another.  The 
most  obvious  instance  is  that  of  the  Democratic  party  in  the 
United  States  in  contrast  with  the  Social  Democrats  of 
Germany.  The  Liberals  in  England  have  scarcely  anything 
beyond  academic  truisms  in  common  with  the  Liberals  of 
Russia.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  "  liberal "  or  "  secessionist," 
and  "  conservative  "  parties  in  the  art  of  different  countries,  and 
there  are  parallels  in  all  religious  bodies.  The  same  qualifica- 
tion applies  in  detail  through  all  the  ramifications  of  party 
structure. 

I,  J.  "Open"  vs.  "secret"  parties. -\ln  the  constitutional 
State  parties  are  always  public,  because  real  party  power  in 
such  States  depends  upon  publicity.  The  necessity  and  the 
certainty  of  secret  parties  are  inversely  as  the  amount  of  con- 
stitutional liberty.  The  Terrorist  party  —  if  it  may  be  so 
called  —  in  Russia  today  is  characteristic  of  an  extreme  situa- 
tion. The  Ku  Klux  Klan,  in  the  "black  belt"  of  the  United 
States  immediately  after  the  Civil  War,  illustrates  the  same 
principle.  Professor  Simmel  has  analyzed  secrecy  as  a  social 
factor  in  a  paper  to  appear  in  the  eleventh  volume  of  the  Ameri- 
can Journal  of  Sociology. 

I,  K.  The  party  the  fulcrum  of  inter ests.^^ — Earlier  in  our 
discussion  we  found  that  the  social  process  is  primarily  the 
formation  of  groups.^  ^  Our  later  analysis  has  tended  both 
to  confirm  the  fact  and  to  impress  the  importance  of  the  fact. 
Life  is  assertion  of  interest;  it  is  community  of  interests;  it 
is  association  or  grouping,  both  as  effect  and  as  means  of 
asserting  interests. ^'  We  merely  set  down  a  more  specific  ren- 
dering of  this  general  truth  when  we  conclude  these  theorems 
about  the  phenomena  of  parties  in  the  State  with  the  proposi- 
tion :  The  party  furnishes  to  the  partisan  the  chief  arena  of 
activity  in  the  State;  i.  e.,[it  is  only  in  the  group,  larger  or 
smaller,  that  the  interests  of  individuals  can  reach  their  maxi- 

*^  As  a  case  book  for  use  at  this  point,  vide  Ostrogorski,  Democracy  and 
the  Organisation  of  Political  Parties  (in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  ; 
2  vols.). 

^^  Chaps.   12-16. 


292  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

mum  expression.  '  This  perception  has,  of  course,  many  bear- 
ings, in  many  directions.  Among  them  not  least  is  the  corol- 
lary (T/ia/  State  is  the  strongest  in  zvhich  the  spirit  of  action 
by  groups  is  most  highly  developed. 

2,  A.  The  political  significance  of  the  government}^ — We 
have  recognized,  first,  the  interests,  and  then  the  parties  which 
incarnate  the  interests,  as  the  elements  which  come  together 
in  struggle  in  the  State,  each  with  a  disposition  which,  if 
unchecked,  would  make  all  the  others  subservient.  We  have  so 
far  only  hinted  at  the  reasons  which  induce  these  warring 
factions  to  depart  from  the  path  of  absolute  hostility;  i.  e.,  to 
close  a  truce  in  obedience  to  the  purposes  of  the  State,  or  at 
least  to  conduct  their  struggle  within  the  lines  of  civil  law. 
In  order  to  bring  this  about,  an  administrative  power  must 
come  into  action.  It  must  be  a  power  wnth  actual  energy 
enough  to  cope  with  all  the  parties.  This  power,  an  outflow 
of  the  general  interest  in  holding  social  struggle  short  of 
actual  violence,  is  the  government.  That  is,cone  among  the 
many  interests  actually  reacting  in  the  social  process  is  the 
governmental  interest.  ,  In  a  sense,  this  is  merely  one  of  the 
interests  like  all  the  rest  which  have  to  be  correlated  in  a  work- 
ing equilibrium.  The  relative  importance  of  this  interest,  and 
the  prominence  of  the  role  it  must  play  in  the  social  process, 
are  matters  of  detail  which  vary  incalculably  according  to 
combinations  of  circumstances  in  the  State  in  question. 

2,  B.  The  State  vs.  the  government. ^^—T\\^  government 
is  the  machinery  either  imposed  upon,  or  elaborated  by,  the 
State  to  exercise  the  function  of  control.  ;  Like  the  individuals 
composing  the  State,  and  the  State  itself,(the  government  of 
a  State  and  the  functions  of  government  are  not  static  entities. 
They  are  incessant  becomings.  Political  philosophies  still  in 
vogue  formulate  the  functions  of  government  as  though  they 
were  as  fixed  as  the  relations  of  the  angles  of  a  right-angled 
triangle.     In  so  far  as  we  arc  aware  that  human  association 

"  Loc.  cit.,  sec.  20. 

"We  have  already  nncle  this  distinction:    vide  chap.   18. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     293 

is  an  evolving  process;  we  see  in  governments  past  and  present, 
and  we  foresee  in  governments  future,  shifting  relations  in 
detail  to  the  States  in  which  they  function.  No  one  can  fore- 
tell, for  instance,  to  what  extent  the  evolution  of  the  social 
process  may  change  governmental  control  from  bare  prevention 
of  evil-doing  to  leadership  in  correlation  of  civic  activities  for 
constructive  well-doing.  Always  and  everywhere,  however, 
in  the  last  analysis,  the  State  is  the  whole,  while  the  govern- 
ment is  a  tributary  agency  functioning  within  the  whole. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  law  administered  by  the  government  is 
always  an  expression  of  the  will  of  those  interests  which  are 
for  the  time  being  dominant.  Changes  in  the  law  and  in  the 
spirit  of  administration  are  consequently  always  affairs  of  the 
readjustment  of  interests  within  the  State.^*^  Close  analysis 
of  the  acts  of  any  administration  will  show  that  all  the 
adverse  criticisms  passed  upon  it  amount  to  charges  that  gov- 
ernment has  taken  sides  with  interests  to  the  prejudice  of  other 
interests.  A  first-rate  historical  problem  is  presented  by  the 
mass  of  such  indictments  always  on  record  against  govern- 
ments. 

2,  C.  The  administration  as  a  party  in  conflict. —  On  the 
one  handj  then,  the  administration  is  primarily  the  protector 
of  the  civic  law  against  all  interests  that  would  evade  or 
change  it.  For  that  very  reason  the  administration  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  perpetual  conflict,  covert  or  overt,  with  all  the 
interests  that  are  opposed  to  the  law,  either  in  letter  or  in 
spirit. /Accordingly,  the  government  is  in  form  the  opponent 
of  all  parties.  In  fact,  the  government  must  serve  as  executor 
or  leader  of  the  party  that  is  for  the  time  being  dominant  in 
the  State.\This  fact  is  both  a  challenge  and  a  clue  to  analysis 
of  concrete  relations  between  governments  and  States. 

2,  C,  a).  The  ultimate  sources  of  pozver. — It  is  a  truism  that 
the  ultimate  source  of  all  political  power,  whether  in  despotic 

'"  That  is,  in  so  far  as  the  social  process  in  the  State  is  a  struggle-process. 
We  are  now  attending  to  this  factor  only.  We  shall  presently  consider  the 
other  main  factor  in  social  evolution.     It  necessarily  modifies  the  above  formula. 


294  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

or  democratic  States,  is  the  people.  Political  evolution  sooner 
or  later  places  a  certain  amount  of  the  physical  power  pre- 
viously distributed  in  a  population  at  the  disposal  of  a  gov- 
ernment.^^ The  latter  accordingly  possesses  the  means  of 
maintaining  civic  order,  and  a  minimum  observance  of  mo- 
rality and  law.  The  distinctive  peculiarity  of  the  government 
is  that  the  portion  of  political  power  at  its  disposal  is  arranged 
in  somewhat  systematic  fashion,  while  the  interests  opposed 
to  the  government  are,  as  a  rule,  relatively  unorganized.  The 
government  can  bring  its  power  to  bear  more  directly  upon  a 
particular  struggle.  Hence  a  considerable  element  of  the 
power  of  a  government.  It  is  capable  of  misuse,  but  failure 
to  use  it  is  prima  facie  evidence  of  an  abnormal  condition  in 
the  State. 

2,  C,  b).  Despotism  the  veto  of  politics. —  In  a  despotism 
the  government  lays  claim  to  the  whole  power  of  the  State 
for  itself.  Despotism  assumes  that  the  government  is  the 
proper  organ  of  all  the  interests  in  the  State;  i.  e.,  that  the 
people  have  no  interests  entitled  to  consideration  except  as  they 
find  voluntary  expression  in  the  administration.  Despotism  is 
accordingly  so  far  forth  arrest  of  the  social  process.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  doubtless  cases  of  the  "benevolent  despo- 
tism" (Prussia  under  Frederic  William  I  and  Frederic  the 
Great)  which,  in  a  longer  and  wider  view  of  the  process  by 
which  they  are  to  be  measured,  must  be  counted  as  stages  of 
adaptation  to  the  conditions  of  international  struggle  to  a 
degree  which  affords  compensation  for  relative  repression  of 
minor  interests. 

2,  C,  c).  The  reaction  of  popular  interests  upon  despotism. 
—  Wherever  consciousness  or  instinct  of  the  power  of  non- 
governmental interests  is  roused  in  a  people,  effort  presently 
follows  to  make  these  interests  felt,  both  reciprocally  by  their 
immediate  agents  (community  of  interests),  and  as  a  limita- 
tion of  administrative  rights.  This  reaction  is  the  first  assur- 
ance that  the  State  will  hold  to  its  proper  task.     Government 

"This  is  virtually  repetition  of  chap.   i8. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     295 

in  consequence  comes  under  the  constraint  of  popular  inter- 
ests and  of  the  parties  in  which  they  are  incarnated.  There 
arises  a  demand  for  law  to  which  government  as  well  as  people 
shall  be  responsible  (constitution),  A  modern  development, 
closely  analogous  in  principle,  is  that  of  trade  unions.  Their 
implicit  struggle  is  for  industrial  constitutionality  in  the  place 
of  absolutism. 

2,  C,  d).  Lazv  as  a  stimulus  of  latent  civic  pozvcr. —  One 
of  the  functions  of  (constitutional)  law  is  to  serve  as  a  basis 
on  which  any  and  every  popular  interest  may  rest  secure,  even 
if  it  is  opposing  the  administration.  This  legal  mediation 
between  interests,  including  the  governmental  interest,  has 
assumed  the  most  diverse  forms.  So  soon  as  this  mediation 
is  a  reality  in  any  form,  its  effects  begin  to  appear  in  the 
emergence  of  popular  energies  which  had  before  been  latent. 
Be  the  constitutional  guarantees  never  so  meager,  they  afford 
new  encouragement  to  the  expression  of  popular  interests. 
The  political  situation  is  henceforth  of  necessity  a  condition 
of  progressive  emancipation  of  interests.  There  can  be  no 
permanent  sanction  in  the  social  process  for  the  exclusion  of 
any  interest  from  its  share  of  freedom.  No  political  oppres- 
sion is  more  onerous  than  that  which  enfranchised  interests 
are  permitted  to  exert  with  reference  to  interests  still  excluded 
from  legal  protection.  (Hence  the  American  War  of  Inde- 
pendence; the  three  great  stages  of  electoral  reform  in 
England;  the  progress  of  industrial,  scientific,  and  religious 
emancipation  throughout  the  world.) 

2,  C,  e).  Constitutional  lazv  shifts  basis  of  morality. —  In 
the  constitutional  State,  crime  in  general,  political  crime  not 
excepted,  must  be  rated  as  immorality.  The  correctness  of  this 
classification  is  directly  as  the  extent  of  enfranchisement  of 
interests.  In  the  absolute  State  the  single  individual  who 
antagonizes  the  government  may  be  regarded,  both  at  the 
time  and  in  the  judgment  of  history,  as  a  morally  justified 
political  champion,  attacking  intolerable  oppression.  A  con- 
stitution, however,   indicates  what  must  be  viewed  as  crime 


296  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

according  to  the  moral  estimate  of  the  people.  In  other  words, 
a  constitution  being  present,  political  crimes  take  on  an 
immoral  aspect.  Other  alternatives  have  been  provided.  In 
the  absolute  State,  government  is  an  end  unto  itself.  It  is  an 
interest  threatening  all  other  interests.  In  the  constitutional 
State  the  partisan  attitude  of  the  government  toward  the  people 
vanishes  in  principle. 

The  social  fact  thus  called  to  mind  is  virtually  the  same 
to  which  St.  Paul  referred  with  slightly  varied  implications : 

What  shall  we  say  then?  Is  the  law  sin?  God  forbid!  Nay  I  had 
not  known  sin,  but  by  the  law,  for  I  had  not  known  lust,  except  the  law 
had  said,  "  Thou  shalt  not  covet."  ....  For  without  the  law,  sin  was  dead 
....  But  when  the  commandment  came  sin  revived  .  .  .  .  " 

Morality  is  observance  of  a  certain  code  recognized  by  the 
group  as  suitable.  So  long  as  government  and  laws  are  not 
recognized  as  suitable,  conduct  regardless  of  government,  or 
subversion  of  government,  may  count  merely  as  physical  resist- 
ance of  superior  force  trying  to  maintain  itself  in  the  place  of 
rightful  government.  Such  conduct  may  be  denounced  as 
crime  by  the  de  facto  government,  but  it  will  not  be  so  rated 
by  the  State  as  a  whole,  nor  will  it  be  classed  as  immorality. 
It  is  not  violation,  but  observance  of  the  order  regarded  as  fit 
(e.  g.,  the  Boers,  November,  1901,  resisting  the  British  gov- 
ernment in  spite  of  Lord  Kitchener's  proclamation  declaring 
them  traitors;  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  under  negro  domination  in 
the  reconstruction  period ;  this  is  doubtless  the  psychology  of 
much  of  the  lynching  in  the  United  States  today).  When, 
however,  a  consensus  has  been  developed  that  a  certain  con- 
stitutional order  is  adapted  to  the  situation,  and  fair  to  the 
interests  involved,  it  becomes  violence  against  the  moral  sense 
of  the  community  to  disregard  that  order.  Lawlessness  is  now 
both  crime  and  immorality. 

2,  C,  /).  Constitutional  lai\.'  an  implied  cquilibrimn  of 
interests. —  The  possible  antithesis  between  government  and 
people  disappears  in  proportion  as  all  interests  are  admitted 

"  Rom.  7:7f!. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     297 

to  legal  participation  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Struggle 
in  the  constitutional  State,  in  spite  of  heat  and  passion,  bars 
absolute  hostility.  If  this  extreme  antagonism  appears,  it  is 
prima  facie  evidence  of  belief  that  some  interests  have  over- 
ridden the  constitution,  or  of  crime  on  the  part  of  the  persons 
displaying  the  extreme  hostility.  The  typical  working  of  the 
social  process  progressively  eliminates  possibility  of  such  epi- 
sodes, by  assuring  to  each  interest  its  proportionate  freedom 
within  the  State. 

2,  C,  g).  Distinction  in  principle  between  absolute  and  con- 
stitutional State. — There  are  really  only  two  State  forms;  viz., 
first,  that  in  which  the  source  of  authority  is  presumed  to  be  in 
the  government,  or  in  some  superhuman  power  speaking  only 
through  the  government;  second,  that  in  which  the  source  of 
authority  is  presumed  to  be  in  the  people. 

2,  C,  g).  Governmental  varieties  under  the  tivo  forms. — 
Within  the  two  types  of  States  the  following  varieties  of  gov- 
ernmental forms  occur  in  the  case  of  monarchies  and  republics, 
viz. : 

L   Within  the  Absolutistic  Form  of  the  State. 
o)   Monarchical  absolutistic    (Russia). 

b)  Despotic  (Persia). 

c)  Oligarchic  absolutistic  republic    (one-time  Venice). 

d)  Democratic  absolutistic  republic,  or  dictatorship   (Rome  at  certain 
periods,  and  several  South  American  states). 

II.    Within  the  Constitutional  Form  of  the  State. 

a)   The  constitutional  monarchy  of  the  autocratic  type   (Prussia). 
h)  The  monarchical  parliamentary  constitutional   State. 

(i)  On  the   aristocratic  basis    (Great   Britain). 

(2)  On  the  democratic  basis    (Norway), 
c)   Parliamentary    republic   on    the    centralized    and    democratic   basis 

(France), 
d) Democratic   republic   on   the   autonomous   basis    (Switzerland)." 

2,  C,  i).  Partisanships  of  governments  under  constitutional 
forms. —  Although  the  constitutional  State  seems  to  give  the 

"  Vide  Wesen  und  Zzveck,  Vol.  I,  pp.  198,  199.  The  above  scheme  is 
Ratzenhofer's  entirely.  As  criticism  of  it  belttngs  primarily  within  the  scope 
of  political  science,  we  present  it  without  comment. 


298  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

government  a  distinctly  limited  status,  yet  even  in  such  a  State 
exercise  of  the  public  power  becomes  more  or  less  an  interest 
of  the  persons  intrusted  with  power,  and  consequently  these 
functionaries  are  never  entirely  free  from  the  characteristics 
of  a  distinct  party.  This  is  true  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  a 
republic.^'^  It  is  very  much  more  true  of  the  sovereign  in  an 
unlimited  monarchy. 

2,  C,  ;').  Partisanship  of  religious  bodies. —  Until  recent 
times,  and  in  most  States  still,  all  religions  have  been  among 
the  factors  of  partisan  struggle,  and  they  have  been  either  part- 
ners or  opponents  of  the  government.  In  proportion  to  the 
priestly  character  of  a  religion  will  be  the  value  of  its  support 
or  the  gravity  of  its  opposition  to  other  interests.  Conceding 
the  claim  of  "  divine  right "  for  both  monarch  and  church, 
harmony  between  the  two  factors  is  practically  irresistible. 
Opposition  between  them  must  enthrone  the  one  or  the  other 
as  de  facto  supreme.^ ^ 

If  ecclesiastical  parties  are  not  devoted  to  the  interests  of 
the  dynasty  against  the  rest  of  the  State,  or  to  some  other 
State  interest  as  opposed  to  the  dynasty,  the  explanation  is 
likely  to  be  that  their  center  of  gravity  is  an  interest  outside 
of  the  State.^^  In  this  case  the  communicants  of  that  church 
are  in  so  far  to  be  subtracted  in  computing  the  power  of  the 

™  After  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  been  seven  weeks  in  the  presidential  office,  one 
of  the  most  acute  political  observers  in  Washington  wrote  to  the  paper  which 
he  represents  (December  i,  1901)  to  the  effect  that  Roosevelt  "is  likely  to  be 
an  ideal  president,  but  there  is  doubt  whether  he  will  be  enough  of  a  partisan 
to  satisfy  his  party  interests  and  lead  his  party."  That  is,  this  phenomenon 
of  the  partisanship  of  a  democratic  chief  magistrate  is  a  distinct  force  to  be 
reckoned  with,  and  it  may  work  either  for  weal  or  for  woe.  From  the  stand- 
point of  party  discipline,  it  is  irregular,  impertinent,  intolerable  for  an  elected 
chief  magistrate  to  serve  his  party  best  by  serving  his  country  best.  On  the 
day  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  inauguration  for  the  second  term  (May  4,  1905)  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  editorially  expressed  the  belief  that  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
most  praiseworthy  qualities  are  likely  to  involve  him  in  difficulties  with  his 
party,  like  those   for  which  history  will   honor  Mr.   Cleveland. 

"  Cf.  Bryce,  The  Holy  Roman  Empire. 

"Thus  the  War  of  Investitures;  the  Kulturkampf  in  Prussia  (1873); 
anticlericalism  in  France  in  the  period  of  President  Faure. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     299 

State.  Such  of  that  power  as  actually  counts  in  with  the 
State  is  not  of  ecclesiastical  origin,  but  it  is  derived  from  other 
interests  which  have  their  fulcrum  within  the  State. 

2,  C,  k).  Partisanship  of  aristocracies. —  In  spite  of  a 
general  law  of  affiliation  between  nobilities  and  dynasties,  the 
former  always  constitute  a  distinct  separatist  element,  more  or 
less  energetic  according  to  circumstances.  If  the  aristocracy 
is  an  active  political  factor,  its  instinctive  aim  is  supreme  con- 
trol.^^  The  position  of  a  political  aristocracy  is,  however,  more 
and  more  equivocal.  It  has  neither  the  justification  of  mon- 
archy, on  the  one  hand,  nor  of  democracy,  on  the  other.  It 
instinctively  conducts  itself  as  a  vanishing  quantity.^^  On  the 
other  hand,  every  survival  of  a  nobility  by  patent  stands  as  a 
reminder  of  a  social  condition  in  which  the  original  holder  of 
the  patent  was  reckoned  as  useful  to  the  State  in  discharging 
some  sort  of  function. 

2,  C,  /).  The  partisanship  of  economic  classes. —  This  sub- 
ject of  course  covers  the  whole  range  of  relations  for  which 
such  terms  as  "  social  economics  "  have  been  invented.  All  the 
phenomena  are  here  included  in  which  conflicting  interests  in 
means  of  obtaining  material  goods  are  the  primary  source  of 
strife  within  the  State.  In  this  summary  it  is  in  order  merely 
to  point  out  the  reality  of  the  distinct  economic  interests  and 
to  emphasize  their  reciprocal  hostilities.  At  no  point  in  analy- 
sis of  the  social  process  is  there  more  evident  need  of  recon- 
sideration than  in  connection  with  conventional  doctrines  of 
the  industrial  harmonies. 

Considered  as  one  continuous  technical  process,  viz., 
extraction  of  raw  material  from  nature,  and  passing  it  through 
the  various  stages  of  transformation  till  it  is  ready  to  be  con- 
sumed by  laborers,  who  will  thereby  be  fitted  to  keep  up  their 
part  in  the  productive  process,  there  is  actual  interdependence 
of  all  concerned,  from  the  farm  laborer  plowing  the  ground 
for  food  crops,  to  the  banker  guarding    the    money  supply 

^  Witness  the  grand  dukes  vs.  the  Czar  in  Russia  today. 
"  Thus  the  British  House  of  Lords. 


300  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

required  in  transporting  the  crop,  or  in  buying  other  raw 
material  which  other  workers  may  transform  into  goods  to 
be  exchanged  for  food  from  the  farms.  As  a  mechanism  for 
turning  out  wealth,  the  industry  of  a  State  demands  harmony 
of  the  parts  co-operating  in  the  industrial  process,  no  less 
than  a  battleship  needs  a  maximum  of  efficiency,  and  a  mini- 
mum of  frictioUj  in  each  element  of  its  structure  and  equip- 
ment. 

But  a  State  is  not  literally  a  mechanism  for  producing  the 
largest  possible  output  of  wealth,  any  more  than  it  is  a  battle- 
ship. In  order  to  produce  the  amounts  and  kinds  of  wealth 
which  the  physical  well-being  of  the  State  requires,  the  people 
must  adapt  themselves  to  the  technical  necessities  of  the  indus- 
trial system  by  means  of  which  they  produce  economic  goods ; 
but  the  part  which  the  people  perform  as  producers  by  no 
means  corresponds  with  the  wants  that  they  feel  as  consumers. 
As  claimants  upon  the  output  of  industrial  co-operation,  the 
people  are,  both  as  classes  and  as  individuals,  irrepressibly 
inharmonious. 

It  would  not  be  true  to  say  of  civilized  men  that  any  class, 
if  left  to  itself,  would  take  the  whole  output  of  wealth,  and 
leave  none  to  the  other  interests.  It  is  approximately  true, 
however,  that  each  class,  if  left  to  itself,  would  eagerly  settle, 
from  its  ozvn  point  of  viciv,  terms  by  which  division  of  wealth 
between  itself  and  all  other  interests  should  be  regulated. 
There  is  not  and  cannot  be  harmony  between  people  as  claim- 
ants to  the  product  of  industry.  The  unfonnulatcd  and  uncon- 
scions  struggle  today,  in  all  industrial  States,  is  for  constitu- 
tionalism in  economic  enterprise,  just  as  the  struggle  of  the 
late  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries  was  for  constitu- 
tionalism in  politics.  That  is,  each  economic  class  wants  a 
fundamental  economic  order  which  will  contain  checks  and 
balances  adequate  to  keep  other  classes  from  usurping  eco- 
nomic power.  Indeed,  we  have  come  to  realize  that  politics  at 
bottom  is  very  largely  a  maneuvering  to  control  the  means  of 
controlling  wealth.    We  see  that  political  liberty  is  an  illusion, 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      301 

unless  it  is  liberty  with  respect  to  all  the  interests  upon  which 
our  welfare  depends.  Democracies  have  discovered  that  the 
ballot  is  not  what  the  champions  of  political  liberty  supposed 
it  to  be,  if  they  cannot  use  it  so  as  to  enforce  their  class  inter- 
ests in  the  fundamental  conditions  of  welfare.  From  the  very 
fact  that  modern  systems  of  production  organize  all  the  people 
of  a  State  in  a  vast  co-operative  process,  the  politics  of  modern 
States  must  become  more  and  more  a  perpetual  measuring  of 
strength  between  the  classes  that  get  their  livelihood  in  differ- 
ent ways  within  the  process.  Each  class  wants  cither  to  retain 
or  to  increase  its  poiver  to  enforce  its  own  estimate  of  its  own 
economic  rights. 

We  are  not  concerned  in  this  connection  with  any  question 
about  the  ethical  strength  or  weakness  of  these  conflicting 
claims.  We  are  analyzing  the  social  process  just  as  it  is,  with- 
out regard  to  the  moral  quality  of  the  facts  that  we  observe. 
The  truth  is  that  a  farm  laborer  in  Kansas,  or  a  street-cleaner 
in  New  York,  has  the  same  legal  liberty  as  the  multi- 
millionaire to  have  wants  of  his  own,  to  talk  about  them 
whenever  he  will,  and  to  combine  with  others  of  like  mind  in 
making  his  wants  felt  as  a  force  in  business  or  in  politics. 
When  the  man  who  raises  wheat  in  Dakota  learns  the  price 
which  it  brings  in  Liverpool,  the  difference  between  that  sum 
and  the  price  he  received  at  the  nearest  railroad  station  tends 
to  represent  the  measure  of  his  supposed  grievance  against 
society.  He  naturally  suspects  the  railroad  of  taking  more 
than  is  due  for  freight.  He  vaguely  charges  every  middleman 
with  depriving  him  of  some  part  of  his  own.  Above  all,  if  he 
finds  that  a  banker  has  had  any  connection  with  handling  his 
wheat,  he  easily  persuades  himself  that  here  is  a  party  guilty 
of  great  wrong  against  his  interests,  if  the  truth  could  be 
known.  If  this  farmer  finds  that  political  or  economic  power 
is  within  the  control  of  his  class,  he  will  accordingly  be  sure 
to  attempt  the  use  of  that  power  in  the  direction  of  curbing 
the  power  of  each  of  these  other  interests  of  which  he  is  sus- 
picious. 


302  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

With  differences  of  detail,  essentially  the  same  is  true  of 
every  other  class.  Each  believes  that  its  own  rights  are  under- 
estimated and  inadequately  guarded  in  the  existing  social 
order,  while  too  much  tether  is  given  to  other  interests  to  pro- 
vide for  themselves.  Each  class,  in  its  own  manner  and 
degree,  is  using  all  the  means  at  its  disposal  to  change  the 
balance  of  power.  Moreover,  classes  that  would  not  of  their 
own  choice  raise  social  issues  about  wealth  are  indirectly 
drawn  kito  alliances,  in  one  combination  or  another,  in  this 
campaign  of  economic  readjustment.  Artists,  teachers,  schol- 
ars, physicians,  clergymen,  newspaper  men,  besides  many  men 
and  women  who  so  far  desert  the  natural  program  of  their 
class,  swell  the  numbers  of  partisans  who  throw  themselves 
with  greater  or  less  reserve  into  the  struggle  to  strengthen 
the  social  influence  of  a  particular  interest  by  weakening  its 
rivals.  To  enumerate  the  economic  interests  that  are  thus 
passively  factors  in  social  struggle  would  involve  proposal  of 
a  complete  economic  analysis  of  society.  Ratzenhofer's  sched- 
ule above  (2,  C,  /)  is  merely  an  approximate  classification, 
which  does  not  purport  to  be  exhaustive. 

Without  entering  upon  detailed  discussion  of  the  economic 
factors  of  conflict  in  modern  society,  we  may  call  attention  to 
a  single  feature  of  modern  social  conflict  which  will  doubtless 
occasion  as  great  modifications  in  social  theory  as  it  has 
wrought  in  social  practice.  This  phenomenon  may  be  consid- 
ered in  a  double  aspect.  In  the  first  place,  the  modern  world 
has  tacitly  assigned  to  capital  a  position  as  an  end  in  itself; 
i.  e.,  we  now  assume  that  it  is  a  virtue  to  increase  capital,  and 
a  vice  not  to  increase  capital.  In  the  second  place,  we  have 
given  to  capital  the  legal  status  of  a  person,  by  incorporating 
capital.  Capital  thus  becomes  a  titanic  superman,  incompar- 
ably superior  to  the  natural  persons  who  find  their  interests 
challenged  by  this  artificial  being.  The  most  significant  factor 
in  the  modern  social  struggle,  therefore,  is  not  any  natural 
person  or  party  of  natural  persons.     It  is  this  legally  created 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     303 

competition  of  a  fictitious  person  with  each  and  all  natural 
persons  for  pre-eminence  as  a  social  force.^^ 

Of  course,  such  a  perception  as  this  leads  us  to  the  actual 
fighting  line  between  capital  and  labor.  We  are  tempted  to 
turn  aside  and  discuss  details  and  practical  issues  between 
these  interests.  Our  present  business,  however,  is  not  of  that 
sort.  The  sociologist's  duty  is  to  determine  the  place  which 
all  concrete  details  of  life  have  in  the  general  social  process. 
His  work  will  at  last  contribute  to  the  adjustment  of  social 
conflicts  by  exhibiting  each  of  them,  and  each  phase  of  interest 
involved  in  them,  in  its  ultimate  relations  with  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  human  activities.  Meanwhile  the  sociologist's  business 
is  not  to  agitate,  but  to  investigate.  He  will  do  his  best  work 
in  the  end  upon  concrete  questions,  by  provisionally  not  work- 
ing upon  them  at  all.  Thus  in  the  present  instance  there  is 
work  enough  for  many  sociologists,  in  determining  typical 
relations  of  the  leading  social  interests,  without  leaving  the 
field  of  scientific  investigation  to  enlist  in  the  fighting  ranks 
of  any  particular  social  class. 

^  We  return  to  these  propositions  in  chap.  27. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE   (continued) 

We  have  roughly  outlined  the  social  process,  as  it  takes 
place  in  the  State,  under  the  general  form  of  an  initiative  of 
all  interests,  each  in  the  line  of  its  most  natural  impulse.  The 
process  at  once  becomes  a  reaction  between  each  person  incar- 
nating an  interest,  and  all  other  persons.  The  nature  of  this 
reaction  varies  all  the  way  from  struggle  to  the  death  between 
individuals,  to  political  alliances  that  divide  the  State  into 
an  administrative  and  an  opposition  party.  In  the  latter  case, 
there  is  a  minimum  of  struggle  between  the  members  of  each 
party,  so  far  as  the  interests  are  concerned  upon  which  the 
coherence  of  the  party  depends,  while  there  is  vigorous  strug- 
gle, with  diminishing  violence  in  means  used,  between  the 
parties.  At  the  same  time,  both  within  and  without  the  politi- 
cal groupings  of  the  population,  the  play  of  interests  weaves 
the  most  intricate  web  of  social  combinations.  The  initiative 
of  interests  in  each  individual  remains  always  the  key  to  the 
whole  process.  This  force  changes  in  detail  both  its  strength, 
its  aim,  and  its  method,  as  experience  advances,  but  it  always 
presses  on  to  realize  itself  so  far  as  the  like  initiative  in  other 
individuals  leaves  room.  This  universal  effort  to  realize  inter- 
ests results  in  progressive  coalition  of  interests  throughout  a 
scale  of  permutations  which  extends  beyond  an  assignable 
limit.  The  problem  of  all  social  science,  whatever  its  name,  is 
to  discover  the  facts  and  the  laws  of  some  portion  or  aspects 
of  these  combinations.  The  duty  of  the  general  sociologist 
is  to  w^ork  on  methods  of  organizing  social  investigation 
toward  the  end  that  no  part  of  the  social  process  shall  be  left 
out  of  sight,  no  part  shall  be  treated  as  though  the  other  parts 
did  not  exist,  or  as  though  they  existed  in  any  other  ratio 
than  that  which  the  facts  of  life  present,  and  each  part  shall 

304 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      305 

be  understood  at  last  in  its  precise  working  relations  with  all 
the  other  parts.  With  this  end  in  view,  we  continue  our 
attempt  to  visualize  leading  features  of  the  social  process  to 
which  the  program  of  sociology  must  give  increasing 
attention.  As  in  the  previous  chapter,  we  are  following 
Ratzenhofer,  first,  in  his  attempt  to  avoid  the  dogmatic  atti- 
tude;^ second,  in  trying  to  approach  more  concrete  and  ana- 
lytic knowledge  of  the  actual  relations  in  which  the  precise 
methods  of  the  social  process  must  be  sought. 

3.  The  principal  parties  in  the  State  and  their  dynamic 
relations  [Ratzenhofer,  Wesen  und  Zzveck,  sec.  21]. —  The 
factions  into  which  the  people  group  themselves  under  the 
impulse  of  their  respective  interests  can  seldom  accomplish 
anything  singly,  in  conflict  with  the  existing  law  and  the  gov- 
ernment. '  The  only  way  in  which  interests  can  gain  any. 
ground  in  the  State  is  to  combine  into  parties  large  enough  to 
give  their  interests  political  weight.  This  combination  can 
occur  only  by  agreement  or  compromise  between  the  rival 
interests, 

3,  A.  Integration  of  interests  by  compromise. — The  actual 
social  process  within  the  State  is  consequently  a  well-  or  ill- 
conducted  program  of  opportunism  on  the  part  of  each  inter- 
est, from  least  to  greatest.  The  progress  of  one  interest  rather 
than  another  is  a  survival  of  the  most  tactful  in  social  combina- 
tion. The  first  step  which  a  faction  must  take  in  allying  itself 
with  another  faction  is  more  or  less  explicit  concession  of  some 
portion  of  its  claims  to  the  counter-claims  of  other  factions. 
By,  thus  sacrificing  a  less  important  margin  of  its  interest,  the 
faction  is  able  to  make  common  cause  with  other  factions 
equally  bent  with  itself  upon  gaining  some  more  important 
remainder  of  interest.  Thus  the  whole  story  of  the  social 
process  might  be  told  from  this  particular  point  of  view,  as  an 

^  Whoever  studies  his  works  with  a  fair  measure  of  sympathy  must  be 
impressed  by  their  exceptional  freedom  from  the  dogmatic  spirit.  Their  most 
confident  propositions  are  always  held  subject  to  correction  by  any  new  evi- 
dence that  may  appear. 

I 


3o6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

unfolding  plot  of  the  compromise  of  interests.  Incidentally 
we  may  remark  that  a  cardinal  reason  for  the  comparatively 
characterless  aspect  of  political  life,  in  the  popular  sense,  in 
the  United  States,  from  the  Civil  War  to  the  period  of  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt,  was  the  control  of  both  principal  parties  by 
virtually  the  same  type  of  interests.  Groups  devoted  to  other 
types  of  interest  failed  so  to  combine  that  they  could  command 
a  hearing  within  either  party. 

3,  B.  Resulting  tri-partite  organization  of  the  State. —  The 
trend  of  this  economy  of  compromise  is  through  cycles  of 
shifting  ratios  of  power  between  three  elements.  They  may 
be  distinguished  roughly  as  (a)  the  constitution,  (b)  the 
majority  party,  (c)  the  minority  party.^  In  accordance  with 
paragraph  i,  C,  /)  ( i )  in  the  preceding  chapter,  the  administra- 
tion is  practically  one  of  the  distinct  interests  reacting  with 
other  interests.  In  the  absolute  State  the  administration  is 
de  facto  the  paramount  interest,  while  there  may  be  scarcely 
enough  consolidation  of  the  other  interests  to  form  a  percep- 
tible opposition.  As  the  social  process  advances,  the  differ- 
entiation of  these  three  factors  becomes  more  real  and  evident. 
They  are  not  always  represented  by  king,  lords,  and  commons, 
by  any  means.  There  is  always  a  representative  of  the  tradi- 
tional order,  and  for  this  reason  we  have  generalized  this 
factor  as  "  the  constitution,"  instead  of  retaining  Ratzenhofer's 
more  special  concept  "the  administration."  The  rest  of  the 
State  tends  to  separate  into  two  chief  parties,  each  promoting 
a  program  more  or  less  divergent  from  that  sanctioned  by  the 
dominating  order  or  the  rival  party.  In  the  actual  working 
of  the  American  system  today,  rather  than  in  its  theory,  it 
would  not  be  difficult  to  make  out  that  the  Supreme  Court, 
more  than  any  other  institution,  occupies  the  position  analo- 
gous with  that  of  the  absolute  monarch,  "the  constitution;" 

'  The  history  of  the  English  constitution,  from  the  Conqueror  to  the 
third  reform  period  of  1885,  furnishes  the  most  available  material  for  studying 
the  laws  of  these  cycles.  King,  barons,  and  commons  are  merely  terms  in  a 
series    which    is    repeated    essentially    in    every    highly    developed    State. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     307 

while  the  President,  however  great  his  actual  influence  upon 
public  policy,  wields  his  power  rather  as  the  leader  of  the 
majority  party  than  as  the  exponent  of  sovereignty.  This 
illustration  at  the  same  time  calls  attention  to  the  wide  differ- 
ence between  results  obtained  by  conventional  analysis  of  eco- 
nomic or  political  institutions,  and  those  reached  when  we 
analyze  the  whole  social  process  of  realizing  interests.  The 
dramatis  personae  in  the  plot  referred  to  in  the  last  paragraph 
are  always  assignable  to  one  of  these  three  divisions  of  actors 
in  the  main  movement. 

3,  C.  The  political  reasons  for  compromise. —  The  prin- 
ciple of  antagonism  of  interests  discussed  above  ^  makes  com- 
promise inevitable,  unless  annihilation  of  an  interest  eliminates 
it  from  the  process.  The  compromise  will  accordingly  take 
place  on  the  basis  of  resemblances  between  the  persons,  under- 
lying the  differences  which  they  must  adjust.  Such  bases  of 
compromise  have  been  referred  to  above  in  the  terms  "politi- 
cal systems"  and  "political  principles."'*  Limited  interests 
are  usually  able  to  unite  upon  some  principle,  and  to  consti- 
tute a  party  of  resistance,  on  the  ground  of  existing  condi- 
tions, or  for  aggression  with  the  aim  of  changing  conditions. 

To  illustrate  from  everyday  occurrences  at  present  in  the 
United  States,  we  have  the  familiar  phenomenon  of  employers, 
otherwise  competitors,  adjourning  competition  enough  to  unite 
against  the  "closed  shop;"  and,  on  the  other  hand,  laborers, 
likewise  competitors,  uniting  upon  the  principle  of  the  "  closed 
shop."  More  general  interests  must  unite,  therefore,  not  upon 
a  "principle,"  but  upon  a  "system"  which  admits  of  latitude 
in  application  of  tributary  principles.  That  is,  there  is  room 
for  choice  between  centralization  and  localization  as  the  com- 
mon basis  of  action. 

For  instance,  the  general  line  of  cleavage  for  a  century 
in  the  United  States,  between  the  supporters  of  federal  sover- 
eignty and  of  state  sovereignty.  After  the  bond  of  union 
between  types  of  people  in  the  United  States  had  apparently 

'Chaps.  19  and  20.  *  Pp.   237,   287,   288. 


3o8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

passed  into  the  catalogue  of  antiquities,  it  reappears  in  new 
form  and  force  as  an  assorter  of  interests  affected  by  rate 
schedules  in  commerce  between  the  states. 

The  variations  of  the  rule  just  formulated  (that  special 
interests  unite  upon  a  principle,  while  general  interests  unite 
upon  a  system)  are  so  many  that  we  cite  the  two  clauses  of 
the  rule  rather  to  suggest  familiar  illustrations  of  reasons  for 
combination  in  parties,  than  as  a  formula  of  the  law  of  such 
combinations. 

3,  D.  Subordinate  reasons  for  compromise. —  In  contrast 
with  the  interests  which,  on  grounds  of  system  or  principle, 
coalesce  in  a  chief  party,  factions  without  number  may  have  a 
weak  affinity  with  one  or  the  other  party;  but  their  more  effi- 
cient special  interests  may  at  any  time  overcome  that  affinity, 
and  lead  the  factions  into  an  equally  unstable  combination  with 
the  other  party,  or  with  some  third  alliance  more  temporary 
than  either.  We  cannot  understand  the  history  of  such  coun- 
tries as  Germany  and  Italy,  for  example,  without  appraisal  of 
these  volatile  elements  at  each  step  of  the  process.  One  of 
the  important  differences  between  the  political  life  of  such 
countries  as  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  present  French  Republic,  on  the  other,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  superior  subordination,  in  the  former  cases,  of 
the  factional  interests  to  the  main  party  interests. 

3,  E.  Degrees  of  factional  attachment  to  parties. —  General 
propositions  upon  this  subject,  as  indeed  upon  the  whole  series 
of  concepts  which  we  are  here  setting  in  order  for  further 
examination,  can  have  merely  tentative  value,  because  the 
precise  facts  of  each  individual  case  will  indefinitely  modify 
any  possil)lc  formula.  With  this  proviso,  we  may  suggest  a 
few  sample  occasions  for  variations  in  party  affiliation.  Thus 
we  have  at  once  each  of  the  interests  in  turn  that  were  referred 
to  in  Part  IV,  chaps.  20  and  21.  The  more  constant  the  motive 
that  correlates  a  party,  the  more  permanent  will  be  its  struc- 
ture. The  more  .shifting  or  temporary  the  motive  around 
which  the  members  of  the  party  rally,  or  the  more  divergent 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      309 

from  the  central  motive  of  the  party  the  special  interests  of 
factions  which  unite  in  its  formation,  the  more  subject  is  the 
structure  of  the  party  to  decomposition  and  re-formation. 
These  are  almost  truisms,  and  hardly  more  than  restatements 
of  3,  D.  These  considerations  point,  however,  to  the  general 
law  that  governments  must  in  the  long  run  get  their  strength 
by  accord  with  the  relatively  permanent  interests  in  the  State; 
and,  further,  to  the  rule  that,  prima  facie,  the  permanent  inter- 
ests and  the  control  of  the  land  of  the  State  are  to  be  looked 
for  in  the  same  persons.  If  this  coincidence  is  absent,  the 
social  order  has  presumably  drifted  into  a  condition  of  insta- 
bility, so  far  as  the  governmental  party  is  concerned. 

3,  F.  J'ariatious  of  factional  inilucncc  in  parties. —  The 
intrinsic  importance  of  interests  by  no  means  always  deter- 
mines the  relative  influence  of  factions  within  parties.  It  is 
sometimes  true  that  the  influence  of  a  faction  is  directly  as 
the  frivolity  or  the  meanness  of  the  interest  which  .it  repre- 
sents. This  has  been  shown  over  and  over  again,  on  a  small 
scale,  in  the  case  of  the  liquor  interest  in  certain  of  the 
American  states  and  cities.  Capital  invested  in  the  liquor 
traffic  has  contrived  to  control  a  balance  of  power  between  the 
parties  and  within  the  parties,  so  that  its  interests  were  secured 
regardless  of  popular  majorities  against  the  liquor  traffic  as 
a  distinct  issue.  While  it  is  true  that  the  social  process  tends 
to  equate  all  interests  by  the  common  standard  of  ultimate 
importance  to  the  process,  it  is  also  true  that,  at  any  given 
stage  of  the  process,  the  influence  of  factions  upon  a  principal 
party  is  a  function  of  the  jwlitical  initiative  and  facility  of 
combination  in  their  personnel. 

3,  G.  The  "Zeitgeist"  as  a  distinct  political  factor. — 
Although  men  struggle  primarily  to  assert  their  selfish  inter- 
ests, yet  selfishness  is  itself  an  indefinitely  variable  factor,  both 
in  quantity  and  in  quality.  If  we  have  to  explain,  in  terms  of 
selfishness,  both  Washington  and  Benedict  Arnold,  both 
Oyama's  soldiers  and  the  looters  of  the  Red  Cross  supplies, 
both  the  Spaniards  and  the  Americans  in  Cuba,  both  the  mis- 


3IO  GENErLA.L  SOCIOLOGY 

sionaries  and  the  slave-traders  in  Africa,  we  are  evidently 
dealing  with  a  concept  that  has  a  different  content  with  each 
type  of  person.  Nothing  can  be  made  out  more  clearly  in 
the  social  process  than  the  tremendous  influence  of  a  something 
different  from  the  particular  interest  of  any  individual  or 
group  in  the  whole  range  of  association  —  a  something  differ- 
ent from  the  mere  arithmetical  sum  of  those  interests,  or  aii 
average  of  those  interests.  It  belongs  to  social  psychology 
to  analyze  this  plus  in  the  social  process;  but  one  factor  of  it 
at  least  is  what  we  know  as  the  Zeitgeist.  It  is  a  way  of  look- 
ing at  the  current  problems  of  life,  that  constitutes  a  sort 
of  major  premise,  to  which  each  minor  premise  of  special  inter- 
est must  conform. 

Americans  find  the  readiest  illustration  in  the  change  in 
general  presumptions  about  slavery  between  1789  and  1861. 
At  the  earlier  date  the  influential  slave-owners  in  the  South 
who  frankly  deplored  the  system  were  perhaps  relatively  as 
numerous  as  the  men  of  equal  prominence  in  the  North  who 
frankly  condemned  it.  Each  section  accepted  it  as  a  necessary 
evil.  At  the  later  period  the  South  felt  lx>und  to  defend  slav- 
ery as  a  divine  institution,  while  the  North  was  controlled  by 
increasing  purpose  to  destroy  the  system.  In  society,  as  in 
the  individual,  the  "psychological  moment"  is  likely  to  deter- 
mine the  success  or  failure  of  particular  impulses.  Any  inter- 
est may  assert  itself  in  opposition  to  the  Zeitgeist,  but  only 
rarely  and  to  a  limited  extent  can  interests  prevail  unless  they 
are  in  harmony  with  the  Zeitgeist. 

We  are  talking  at  present  of  "  the  imperialistic  spirit " 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  The  phrase  stands  for  the 
whole  modern  bent  for  operations  on  a  large  scale,  whether 
in  politics,  production,  commerce,  finance,  publicity,  scientific 
research,  social  amelioration,  education,  or  religion.  We 
speak  of  our  time  as  "the  age  of  combinations."  It  is  prover- 
bial that  it  is  easier  to  "float"  a  big  enterprise  than  a  little 
one.  We  have  not  outgrown  eighteenth-century  individualism 
as  the  respectable  social  creed,  but  the  real  world  has  never 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      3" 

been  so  complexly  collected,  not  to  say  thoroughly  collect ivistic, 
as  it  is  today.  The  successful  type  of  individualism,  in  current 
practice,  is  syndicated.  No  man  is  quite  sure  of  himself  today 
outside  of  a  combination  with  other  men.  At  the  same  time, 
the  social  rating  of  men  is  more  openly  than  ever  before 
reduced  to  a  common  denominator  of  market  values.  The  tone 
of  court  and  church  and  school,  as  well  as  of  farm  and  train 
and  shop  and  bank,  is  modulated  to  these  two  facts. 

At  the  same  time,  this  very  fact  of  the  enormous  influence 
of  a  Zeitgeist  is  the  constant  stimulus  of  the  sociologists. 
Genuine  sociology  has  no  vocation  as  a  contestant  in  the  arena 
where  hostile  interests  struggle  for  division  of  material  goods. 
Toward  such  contestants,  the  sociology  that  is  most  conscious 
of  its  ultimate  function  will  calmly  insist :  "  Who  made  me  a 
judge  or  a  divider  over  you?"  The  proper  influence  of  soci- 
ology will  be  exerted  through  the  sociological  Zeitgeist  that 
is  developing  as  a  result  of  serious  attention  to  social  problems.^ 
i  The  sociologists  will  do  most  in  the  end  by  assisting  their  fel- 
lows to  understand  the  social  process  precisely  as  it  is,  and  to 
form  programs  of  conduct  conformed  to  the  largest  concep- 
tions of  human  well-being  and  of  social  resources.  This  work 
will  sooner  or  later  contribute  to  social  progress,  while  the 
sort  of  conflict  waged  between  social  classes  today  merely 
leaves  one  party  or  another  a  temporary  victor,  but  essential 
social  principles  remain  as  confused  as  before.^ 

4.  Political  leadership  [sec.  22]. —  We  have  passed  in 
review   leading  types  of  concrete   manifestations  of   interest 

°  This  confession  of  faith  harmonizes  with  the  forecast  of  Mr.  Bryce,  but 
it  is  still  more  specific.  After  drawing  the  conclusion  that  "  men  do  not  for 
any  long  time  remain  without  a  consistent  theory  of  life,  and  a  faith  on  which 
to  ground  such  a  theory  ,  "  he  applies  the  generalization  to  our  own  time  in 
these  words :  "  Ages  of  negation  and  criticism  are  succeeded  by  ages  of  con- 
struction. Filled  with  discordant  schools  of  thought  and  irreconcilable  schemes 
for  social  progress,  permeated  by  a  skepticism  which  distrusts  all  schemes 
equally,  the  world  may  appear  to  be  waiting  for  some  new  idealistic  system 
possibly  already  in  the  germ."     '^Holy  Roman  Empire,  ed.  of  1904,  p.  511.) 

"  Vide  Ward,  "  Theorems  of  Dynamic  Sociology,"  Dynamic  Sociology, 
Vol.  II,  pp.  108-19. 


312  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

within  civic  society.  The  wide  margin  between  the  manifested 
and  the  latent  interests  in  a  people  is  very  largely  due  to  the 
absence  or  impotence  of  leaders.  Social  initiative  depends 
upon  the  function  of  directing  the  activities  of  the  members 
of  a  group  toward  a  common  purpose.  The  power  of  a  group 
does  not  often  focalize  spontaneously  in  efficiency  to  make  its 
interest  felt.  The  effective  value  of  two  groups  may  be 
inverted  by  superiority  of  the  weaker  over  the  stronger  in  the 
element  of  leadership."^  The  phenomena  of  leadership  are 
accordingly  of  first-rate  importance  as  keys  to  the  social 
process. )  They  require,  in  the  first  place,  objective  description, 
like  all  other  elements  of  the  social  process;  but  objective 
description  must  pass  so  directly  into  psychological  interpreta- 
tion that  lines  of  investigation  can  hardly  be  indicated  in  this 
connection  without  assuming  elements  of  social  psychology 
which  the  present  argument  has  not  brought  into  view.  We 
therefore  merely  call  attention  in  passing  to  this  constant  fac- 
tor in  group  reactions.  After  rough  surveys  of  social  facts  are 
more  complete  than  at  present,  and  after  social  psychology  has 
made  its  methods  more  objective,  it  will  be  in  order  to  face  the 
problems  that  leadership  presents.'*^ 

5.  The  governing  idea  of  political  groups  [sec.  23]. — 
Given  the  existence  of  a  group  gathered  about  an  interest,  not 
merely  a  pack  of  human  animals,  a  purpose  is  necessarily 
implied  for  which  the  membei's  of  the  group  will  struggle. 
That  is.  the  group  instinctively  obeys  its  impulse  to  assert 
itself,  and  thus  to  realize  its  purpose.  Speaking  in  less  general 
terms,  with  familiar  political  facts  as  our  particular  illustra- 
tion, the  existence  of  a  party  organization,  or  of  a  leader  with 
an  assured  position  at  the  head  (^f  followers,  is  a  condition 
which  assures  the  beginning  of  aggressive  action.     The  single 

'  It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  the  case  of  Russia  and  Japan  at  the  present 
moment  is  clearly  typical,  both  in  civic  and  in  military  relations. 

'  Significant  bcRinninRS  have  been  made  in  this  field  by  Tarde,  Les  trans- 
formations du  pouvoir :  Ross,  Social  Control,  particularly  chap.  21,  "Person- 
ality;" and  Mumford,  "The  Beginnings  of  Leadership,"  to  appear  in  the 
American  Journal  of  Sociology. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      313 

politician  does  not  create  the  party.  At  most  he  gives  the  final 
impulse  which  brings  dormant  interests  to  consciousness  and 
effort.  )The  purpose  of  party  (group)  policy  is  accordingly 
given  in  the  fact  that  the  group  came  into  existence.  This  pur- 
pose can  be  no  other  than  practical  assertion  of  the  idea  which 
forms  the  rallying-point  of  the  group. 

In  this  trite  observation  we  have  the  key  to  the  relentless 
collective  selfishness  that  is  invariably  the  initial  trait  of  group 
action  (e.  g.,  "corporations  have  no  souls").  In  studying  the 
actual  social  process,  therefore,  whether  seen  in  associations 
as  comprehensive  as  the  State,  or  in  the  minutest  groups  within 
the  State,ia  cardinal  sociological  factor  is  the  group  idea,  pur- 
pose, selfishness,  interest,  or  animus.  Knowing  this  bond  of 
community,  we  have  found  a  real  value  for  the  first  term  in 
the  group  equation.  In  this  term  we  have  the  first  social  force 
energetic  enough  to  make  a  distinctly  collective  manifestation. 
\  By  producing  coherence  between  persons,  the  group  idea  is 
distinguished  from  factors  of  individual  consciousness,  which 
are  the  subject-matter  of  pure  psychology.^  )  Like  the  subject 
of  the  previous  paragraph,  the  present  title  is  therefore  a  way- 
mark  on  the  borders  of  social  psychology.  We  merely  note 
its  significance  in  passing, 

6.  Ambiguity  as  a  means  of  political  struggle  [sec.  29]. — 
Again  we  call  attention  to  a  real  fact,  which  has  a  certain 
degree  of  prominence  as  an  objective  incident  of  the  social 
process,  but  which  looms  up  larger  in  psychological  explana- 
tion of  the  process  than  as  a  feature  of  the  process  itself.  In 
a  word,  it  is  this :  Besides  its  impulse  in  the  special  interest 
of  the  group,  every  factional  activity,  from  least  to  greatest, 
has  also  bearings  upon  more  and  most  general  interests, 
through  a  wide  scale.  For  example,  a  carpenters'  union  has 
its  reasons  for  existence  primarily  in  the  common  interests  of 
employees,  as  opposed  to  employers,  in  one  branch  of  the  build- 
ing trades.    Yet  this  union  may  find  itself  forced  to  choose  for 

'  I  have  argued  this  point  somewhat  at  length  in  a  review  of  Giddings' 
Indue tice  Sociology,   in  Science,   May  2,   1902. 


314  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

or  against  community  of  interests  with  the  building  trades 
unions  in  general,  organized  labor  as  a  whole,  the  educational, 
political,  or  religious  organizations  of  the  country,  or  with 
some  debatable  phase  of  democracy  at  large. 

As  a  rule,  every  group  in  civilized  States  imagines,  and 
perhaps  proclaims,  that  its  aim  is  essential  to  the  general  good, 
if  not  identical  with  the  general  good  (thus,  "the  Three 
Tailors  of  Tooley  Street").  (^There  is  a  direct  ratio  between 
the  degree  of  social  advancement  in  a  group  and  its  desire  to 
have  its  group-selfishness  appear  in  the  guise  of  public  spirit.^ 
Accordingly,  promotion  of  group  interests  goes  forward  under 
the  stimulus  of  appeal  to,  and  sanction  from,  either  of  the 
wider  ranges  of  interest  with  which  it  is  closely  or  remotely 
related.  For  example,  not  a  war  has  been  fought  in  Europe 
for  a  thousand  years  which  was  not  proclaimed  by  both  con- 
testants as  a  religious  struggle.  On  the  other  hand,  no  reli- 
gious movement  has  failed  to  claim  that  it  alone  was  the  condi- 
tion of  all  the  lesser  temporal  good  that  men  ought  to  desire. 
Group  programs  are  accordingly  always  more  or  less  at  the 
mercy  of  popular  confusion,  and  of  demagogic  indirection, 
with  reference  to  the  real  and  the  ostensible  motives  for  actioii> 
The  path  of  popular  movements  is  made  up  of  tangents, 
because  purposes  are  aimed  at  one  fraction  of  interest  after 
another,  and  the  different  objects  of  attention  never  fall  into 
a  perfectly  straight  line. 

Ambiguity  is  both  an  unavoidable  accident  of  social  situa- 
tions, and  it  is  artificially  promoted.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
flexible  devices  of  public  leaders.  In  the  United  States,  for 
instance,  one  of  the  most  familiar  illustrations  is  the  canon  of 
"  party  regularity,"  which,  with  large  numbers  of  citizens,  has 
had  the  force  of  an  elementary  virtue.  The  distinctions 
between  members  of  party  machines  and  voters  who  use  party 
organizations  just  as  they  would  choose  between  two  trans- 
portation lines,  are  kept  as  indistinct  as  possible  by  the  politi- 
cal workers,  and  "regularity"  is  enforced  upon  all  who  can 
be  persuaded  to  regard  it  as  an  end  in  itself.     In  general. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE     315 

ambiguity  is  the  ambush  from  which  special  interests  assail 
common  interests. 

7.  Terrorism  as  a  coiiipaig)i  device  [sees.  30  and  31]. — 
In  every  State,  party  life  rests  properly  upon  exchange  of 
opinion,  that  is,  upon  the  means  of  intellectual  commerce. 
The  struggle  for  power,  however,  induces  every  group,  accord- 
ing- to  the  intensity  of  the  political  struggle,  and  at  the  same 
time  in  exaggeration  of  group  opinions,  to  adopt  terrorism. 

1  The  wish  to  convert  fellow-citizens  to  the  group  opinion  stimu- 
lates abandonment  of  spiritual  for  material  means  of  persua- 
sion. Thereupon  discussion  ceases,  and  a  policy  of  using  more 
or  less  evident  violence  begins.  In  the  social  process  as  a 
whole,  the  phenomena  of  terrorism  run  the  gamut  from  old 
wives'  fables  in  the  nursery  to  "peaceful  picketing"  by  strik- 
ers, and  the  bugbear  of  yellow  perils,  and  the  moral  suasion 
of  marking  down  national  credit. 

8.  The  time  element  in  social  struggle  [sec.  33]. —  The 
parable  of  the  sower  might  be  paraphrased  in  terms  of  time 
instead  of  soil.  The  merits  of  a  social  impulse,  abstractly  con- 
sidered, are  no  measure  of  its  immediate  social  influence.  The 
effectiveness  of  interests  is  a  function  of  the  attention  of  people. 

f  An  interest  logically  formulated,  at  a  time  when  general  atten- 
tion is  otherwise  preoccupied,  may  either  gain  abnormal  advan- 
tage because  the  usual  obstructions  are  not  interposed,  or  it 
may  fail  utterly  to  make  an  impression,  because  the  necessary 
co-operation  cannot  be  enlisted,  i  It  is  merely  a  variation  of 
this  commonplace  to  say  that  the  progress  of  interests  depends 
upon  the  length  of  time  through  which  its  supporters  can  per- 
sist in  representing  its  claims.  The  elements  of  present  social 
status  may  be  found  in  a  very  remote  past.  The  story  of  the 
gradual  development  of  the  present  out  of  the  past  might  be 
told  coherently  on  a  plan  in  which  the  opportuneness  or  the 
inopportuneness  of  promotion  in  the  different  directions  mak- 
ing for  progress  would  form  the  basis  of  the  plot.  In  like 
manner,  it  is  easy  to  classify  current  social  dogmas  as  timely 
or  untimely.     To  all  practical   intents    and    purposes,    these 


3i6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

terms  are  equivalent  respectively  to  true  and  false.  In  the 
social  process,  as  in  mechanics,  that  is  true  which  will  work.-^** 
All  the  absolute  truth  that  was  in  the  American  Declaration 
of  Independence  in  1776  would  have  been  equally  true  in  the 
time  of  Nero,  but  it  could  not  be  available  until  a  vast  amount 
of  approximate  truth  had  first  been  assimilated.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  the  time  may  come  when  some  of  the  postulates 
of  socialism  may  be  accepted  as  valid  generalizations.  ]\Iean- 
while,  upon  present  social  consciousness  they  have  only  the 
effect  of  more  or  less  irritating  distractions. 

9.  Political  tacticJ  [sees.  32  and  34]. —  The  social  process 
in  its  struggle  phase  must  sooner  or  later  be  considered  as  a 
strategic  alignment  of  hostile  organizations  conducting  delib- 
erate campaigns.  Leadership  in  these  campaigns  is  of  many 
types,  and  the  corresponding  strategy  and  tactics  will  vary 
accordingly.  For  instance,  a  government  may  be  the  strategic 
authority.  The  campaign  which  it  carries  on  will  present  the 
phenomena  of  a  general  policy,  instinctive  or  deliberate  estab- 
lishment or  preservation  of  conditions  favorable  to  the  policy, 
such  as  repression  of  popular  thought  and  prohibition  of  politi- 
cal discussion  by  the  autocracy  in  Russia,  or  the  opposite  pro- 
gram with  a  view  to  a  contrasted  policy  in  England  and  the 
United  States.  Then  there  follow  the  details  of  action  in 
pursuance  of  the  policy ;  crises  and  the  means  of  meeting 
them;  changes  of  working  plans  and  fall  of  ministries;  coups 
d'etat;  dissolutions  of  parliaments;  usurpations  of  authority; 
coalitions  of  factions;  use  of  armed  force;  revolutions;  under- 
mining of  opposition  by  corruption.  Viewed  from  the  side  of 
parties  as  strategic  leaders,  the  phenomena  are  varied  by  com- 
binations of  the  parties  with  their  governments;  maneuvers 
of  minority  parties ;  varieties  in  degrees  of  opposition ;  coali- 
tion parties;  obstruction,  hostile  demonstration,  popular  revo- 
lution ;  etc.     In  contrast  with  the  phenomena  referred  to  above 

'"  This  f.ict  is  an  index  of  the  irreprcssihle  conflict  between  all  the  tradi- 
tional metaphysical  systems  of  morals  and  the  sociological  criteria  of  ethics. 
The  antithesis  will  be  treated  at  length  in  Part  VIII. 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      317  ) 

as  primarily  material  for  social  psychology,  these  details  are 
primarily  the  affair  of  social  technology  in  the  broader  sense. 
They  are  ways  and  means  of  bringing  the  social  purposes  to 
pass.  Their  psychology,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  more 
spiritual  factors  of  the  social  process  above  named,  is  relatively 
secondary. 

10.  The  tactical  results  of  success  vs.  failure  [sec,  35]. — 
From  the  point  of  view  of  social  philosophy,  each  distinguish- 
able campaign  is  a  means  of  comparing  the  consequent  with  the 
antecedent  social  status.  Has  the  movement,  on  the  whole, 
been  constructive  or  destructive?  How  has  the  social  situation 
been  altered?  How  does  the  resulting  equilibrium  differ  from 
the  previous  adjustment?  What  line  of  movement  among 
the  active  interests  is  indicated  by  the  new  situation? 

11.  Review  and  summary  [sec,  36]. —  In  practice,  Rome 
is  usually  taken  as  the  most  distinct  exhibit  of  civic  phenomena. 
The  facts  of  Roman  history  seem  to  constitute  a  perfectly 
clear-cut  piece  of  human  experience.  Conventional  treatment 
seems  to  have  accounted  for  everything  in  the  record.  Our 
view  of  Roman  history,  however,  makes  it  much  simpler  than 
it  really  was.^^  If  we  should  ask  the  historians  to  give  us  the 
facts  to  fill  out  the  foregoing  scheme  of  analysis,  it  would  be 
found  that  they  had  to  a  considerable  extent  glossed  over  and 
evaded  the  crucial  problems  both  of  description  and  explana- 
tion. 

If  we  must  presume  hitherto  unperceived  complication  of 
social  forces  in  a  society  as  sharply  defined  as  that  of  Rome, 
how  much  more  will  this  be  the  case  in  a  modern  State!  In 
the  latter  there  is,  at  first  glance,  endless  multiplication  of  con- 
flicting interests,  and  inextricable  chaos  of  antagonistic  motives 
and  purposes. 

The  beginning  of  social  wisdom  must  be  sought  in  reduc- 
tion of  this  apparent  chaos  to  mental  order,  in  discrimination 
of  the  conflicting  motor  forces,  and  in  understanding  of  their 
reciprocal  relations.     Rigorous  analysis  of  interests  traces  out 

"  Cf.  Mommsen's  version  of  Roman  history  with  that  of  Pais. 


3i8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  kind  of  aggressive  impulse  that  actuates  the  groups,  from 
least  to  greatest,  within  the  State.  Only  on  the  basis  of  such 
discovery  can  the  meaning  of  each  group  for  the  social  process 
as  a  whole  be  made  clear. 

At  the  end  of  the  second  volume  of  Wescn  und  Zweck, 
Ratzenhofer  again  surveys  the  course  of  his  argument.  He 
has  meanwhile  extended  his  analysis  of  the  social  process 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  State,  and  has  been  discussing  the 
struggle  of  interests  still,  but  the  point  of  view  of  the  second 
volume  is  that  part  of  the  struggle  which  takes  pla<:e  across 
the  boundary  lines  of  States.  The  animus  of  the  process  is 
the  same  which  he  has  pointed  out  from  the  beginning,  namely, 
personal  or  collective  selfishness  trying  to  make  itself  success- 
fill  in  territory  not  within  the  control  of  any  single  State. 
This  whole  division  of  social  struggle,  as  distinguished  from 
the  struggle  within  the  State  which  Ratzenhofer  calls  the 
political  struggle,  he  designates  as  social  politics.  An  illustra- 
tion of  what  is  meant  by  social  politics  would  be  the  present 
struggle  of  all  mercantile  States  for  trade  advantages  in 
China.  The  negotiations  in  1901  and  earlier  with  reference 
to  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  and  the  prospective  building  of 
an  Isthmian  canal,  are  incidents  of  "  social  politics,"  interna- 
tional but  not  necessarily  official.  The  same  thing  is  true  of 
such  organizations  as  the  International —  an  attempt  of  labor- 
ers in  all  countries  to  accomplish  their  purposes  by  combina- 
tion which  would  be  effective  regardless  of  State  boundaries. 
The  operations  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church,  in  so  far  as  they 
have  penetrated  many  countries  at  the  same  time,  are  illustra- 
tions of  what  is  here  meant  by  social  politics  in  distinction 
from  State  politics.  After  carrying  out  his  analysis  of  the 
ways  and  means  of  this  struggle,  first  between  States,  and 
then  particularly  between  elements  which  disregard  the  boun- 
daries of  States,  Ratzenhofer  concludes  that  portion  of  his 
analysis  in  this  way : 

I  have  thus  attempted  to  portray  the  nature  of  political  struggle  pre- 
cisely as  it  is.    I  now  take  the  liberty  of  saying,  in  conclusion,  that  politics 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      319 

is  essentially  as  I  have  described  it.  I  may  have  erred  in  my  judgment 
of  particular  political  facts/  The  material  on  which  judgment  has  to  be 
passed,  that  is,  history  and  Social  conditions,  does  not  lie  so  plainly  open 
before  the  eye  of  the  investigator  as  is  the  case  of  the  cadaver  before  the 
anatomist,  and  investigation  of  this  material  must  practically  proceed 
without  the  assistance  of  direct  experiment.  The  liabilities  to  error  are 
consequently  very  great.  Nevertheless,  the  leading  ideas  which  I  have 
followed  rest  upon  definite  sociological  laws  and  political  theorems.  In 
my  description  of  the  nature  of  political  phenomena,  I  have  often  recoiled 
from  the  logic  of  fact,  and  I  am  consequently  quite  sure  that  in  many  of 
my  readers  these  same  facts,  and  the  conclusions  unavoidable  from  them, 
will  have  aroused  disagreeable  emotions.  The  science  of  politics,  however, 
is  primarily  a  psycho-pathology  of  human  beings,  and  with  reference  to 
such  a  science  the  truth  is  always  rather  of  a  depressing  than  of  an 
exhilarating  nature.  For  the  very  reason  that  the  essence  of  politics  is  so 
repulsive,  and  because  it  is  difficult  to  discuss  politics  without  rousing  the 
suspicion  of  attempting  thereby  to  play  politics,  political  science  has  up  to 
date  displayed  decided  reluctance  to  use  the  probe  relentlessly  in  research 
within  political  conditions.  A  consequence  of  this  shyness  about  political 
truth,  and  hesitation  to  carry  on  severe  investigation  of  the  essence  of 
politics,  has  been  that  we  have  satisfied  ourselves  with  a  sort  of  pseudo- 
science,  which  attempted  to  rouse  the  belief  that  politics  has  an  ethical 
content,  and  that  political  theory  can  be  built  up  upon  ethical  considera- 
tions. We  have  produced  such  falsification  of  human  and  social  motives 
in  politics  that  in  many  scientific  treatises  they  have  amounted  to  intoxica- 
tion of  our  senses  with  reference  to  our  political  nature.  The  fact  is  that 
people  have  been  afraid  to  investigate  politics,  because  of  the  liability  to  be 
accused  of  political  intentions.  This  'fact  itself  confirms  the  foregoing 
analysis  of  the  essence  of  politics.  It  is  just  as  impossible  to  expound  the 
essential  nature  of  politics  in  generalities  built  upon  a  priori  assumptions 
about  the  purpose  of  politics,  as  it  would  be  to  expound  the  real  nature  of 
the  physical  world  by  means  of  idealistic  conceptions  of  the  destiny  of 
mankind. 

Accordingly,  I  make  bold  to  say,  on  the  basis  of  the  foregoing  analysis, 
we  now  know  what  politics  is ;  we  know  that  it  is  the  product  of  a  certain 
social  compulsion  working  as  natural  energy  in  human  society.  Whoever 
seriously  takes  into  consideration  the  consequences  of  this  sociological 
doctrine  will  lose  thereby  the  politically  hateful  aftertaste  which  many 
conclusions  in  the  realm  of  political  research  have  had.  When  we  regard 
the  single  individual  as  the  product  of  his  environment,  the  question  of 
the  morality  of  the  interest  which  he  or  his  group  represents  will  become 
in  a  large  measure  empty,  and  we  shall  see  that  the  mode  of  political  action 


320  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

which  the  person  adopts  is  predominantly  an  affair  of  political  necessity. 
If  we  penetrate  to  comprehension  of  sociology,  we  shall  be  able  to  under- 
stand the  essence  of  politics  in  the  abstract  and  to  develop  political  doctrine. 
If,  however,  we  remain  outside  of  such  intelligence,  we  cannot  master  our 
political  sensibilities,  and  we  shall  play  politics  whenever  we  pretend  to 
study  politics,  and  we  shall  not  succeed  in  understanding  our  subject- 
matter. 

f  It  is  the  essence  of  political  doctrines  that  they  are  least  understood 
by  those  in  whom  the  political  impulses  most  energetically  work.  It  can 
be  accounted  for  only  by  failure  to  comprehend  the  essence  of  politics,  when 
people  preach  morality  to  the  politically  functioning  individual.  Love  and 
reconciliation  are  psychical  phenomena  which  in  the  political  situation 
cannot  be  effective  through  a  personal  volition,  but  only  through  facts. 
The  objective  point  is  accordingly  to  make  these  desired  spiritual  mani- 
festations possible  to  the  active  partisan.  Moral  wrong  in  politics  is  not  a 
human  error  which  can  be  avoided  on  the  basis  of  instruction.  It  rests, 
on  the  contrary,  upon  a  conscious  or  instinctive  compulsion.  ;  We  cannot 
bring  politics  and  ethics  into  immediate  harmony.  On  the  contrary,  ethical 
motives  are  a  product  of  political  development,  and  the  sovereignty  of 
morality  is  not  a  product  of  free  volitions,  but  rather  a  political  organiza- 
tion which  produces  the  social  will  for  ethical  motives. 

Accordingly,  what  seems  to  be  wanting  in  my  account  of  the  essence 
of  politics  —  that  is,  the  other  side  of  human  phenomena,  the  ethical 
motives  in  contrast  with  the  political  —  all  this  comes  to  control  in  society 
as  product  of  political  development.  It  is  an  organization  of  morality  with 
political  means.  iThe  ethical  motives  bring  the  political  impulses  to  silence. 
Wherever  struggle  rules,  however,  ethical  motives  can  at  best  vitiate  the 
political  concept,  so  that  neither  politics  nor  the  ethical  purpose  has 
definite  success.)  A  theory  which  attempts  to  establish  politics,  in  disregard 
of  its  nature,  upon  the  ethical  tendencies  of  mankind,  not  merely  falsifies 
the  truth  of  natural  law,  but  even  the  ethical  ideals  themselves.  If  we 
look  around  us  in  political  life,  we  see  how,  for  political  purposes,  the 
ethical  talents  of  men  are  set  in  motion,  with  their  selfish  foundation.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  name  a  political  purpose  which  cannot  and  is  not 
credited  with  edifying  fundamental  principles,  or  animating  aims.  When- 
ever anything  particularly  barbarous  or  contemptible  is  proposed  in  the 
course  of  political  struggle,  there  is  always  some  way  of  crediting  it  with 
lofty  purposes,  by  means  of  which  the  barbarism  is  seldom  removed,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  it  works  scandal  for  the  ethical   idea. 

The  ethical  development  of  men  demands  first  of  all  that  ethical  and 
political  conceptions  shall  be  distinguished.  Morality  is  a  higher  purpose 
of   our   struggle ;    politics,    however,    is   always   merely  a   means    for  our 


TYPICAL  CONFLICTS  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE  STATE      321 

purposes.  '  By  its  very  nature,  therefore,  politics  is  absolutely  following 
of  utility  with  reference  to  purposes,  regardless  of  the  ethical  character  of 
those  purposes.  Morality  in  itself  can  render  politics  no  service.  I  Politics, 
however,  can  serve  all  interests,  incidentally  even  our  ethical  interests,  if 
we  can  only  gain  a  standpoint  from  which  these  ethical  interests  can  also 
be  struggle  interests.  } 

The  development  of  the  political  struggle  shows  us  the  growing  power 
of  society  over  the  individuals.  The  study  of  politics  thus  displays  to  us 
the  fact  that  the  whole  is  triumphing  over  the  special.  Since,  however, 
every  morality  rests  upon  our  social  obligations,  that  political  under- 
standing which  opens  up  to  us  the  growing  co-operation  of  social  com- 
pulsion must  of  itself  produce  moral  insight  and  ethical  principles.  An 
ethic  which  is  derived  merely  from  the  subjective  condition  of  the  indi- 
vidual —  like,  for  example,  Schopenhauer's  ethic,  founded  upon  sympathy  — 
is  u.seless,  and  it  disregards  an  essential  part  of  our  existence.  Only  when 
we  turn  to  the  social  phase  of  our  existence,  do  all  moral  ideals  emerge 
clearly  and  definitely. 

The  ultimate  source  even  of  Kant's  conception  of  ethics  is  in  the 
sociological  conceptions ;  that  is,  his  fundamental  theorem  of  practical 
reason  was,  "  So  act  that  the  rules  of  your  will  may  be  fit  to  become  uni- 
versal laws."  This  must  also  be  the  fundamental  rule  of  all  practical 
ethics.  Thus  sociology,  and  particularly  insight  into  the  essence  of 
politics,  lead  us  to  that  other  side  of  our  individuality  which,  anticipating 
the  scientific  development  which  we  are  now  atterhpting  to  complete,  has 
always  been  presented  as  the  higher  aim  of  our  endeavor.  What  I  mean 
is  this ;  Kant  could  not  have  established  his  fundamental  law  of  practical 
reason  upon  pure  reason  alone.  The  proof  of  its  validity  appears  only  after 
we  have  investigated  the  relationships  that  till  out  the  scope  of  sociology; 
that  is,  the  proof  lias  to  be  found  in  the  social  nature  of  our  being. 

The  dualism  of  our  individuality,  the  political  and  barbaric  side  of 
which  has  been  so  zealously  veiled  and  denied,  in  order  to  exalt  as  much 
as  possible  the  ethical  side  of  our  nature,  resolves  itself,  in  the  sociological 
conception,  into  a  monism  in  accordance  with  which  ethical  completeness 
is  merely  a  higher  stage  in  the  evolution  of  our  political  individuality. 
Morality  conceived  as  an  individual  affair  —  that  is,  formulated  from  the 
individual  standpoint,  and  developed  out  of  an  unsociological  thought- 
process —  has  always  had  at  its  side  a  parallel  conception  of  individualistic 
politics.  Under  this  conception,  we  attempted  in  vam  to  reach  a  unifica- 
tion, a  synthesis,  a  realization  of  ethical  principles  in  politics.  Social  , 
morality,  on  the  other  hand,  is  itself  a  thoroughgoing  social  policy.  The  \/ 
fundamental  ethical  law  of  the  zvorld  is  completeness  on  the  individual 
side,  in  and  by  means  of  the  reciprocal  dependence  of  all  things.    Accord- 


322  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

ingly,  from  this  point  of  view  we  see  before  us  a  mighty  and  lofty  task  of 
poHtics  and  of  its  science,  the  accomplishment  of  which,  however,  neces- 
sarily demands  painfully  accurate  comprehension  of  the  nature  of  politics 
and  of  its  antithesis  with  ethics. 

We  shall  necessarily  arrive  at  this  perception  sooner  or  later,  for  the 
very  fact  that  I  am  discussing  it  is  already  a  proof  of  the  social  demand 
for  this  insight.  Our  thinking  actually  takes  place  under  the  political  con- 
ditions which  contain  this  insight. 


PART   V 

SOCIETY    CONSIDERED    AS    A    PROCESS    OF    ADJUSTMENT 

BY   CO-OPERATION    BETWEEN   ASSOCIATED 

INDIVIDUALS 

(Further  Interpretation  of  Ratzenhofer) 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

GENERAL  SURVEY 

At  the  beginning  of  our  analysis  of  social  struggle  we 
observed  that  struggle  and  reciprocity  are  always  to  a  certain 
extent  functio^is  of  each  other.^  None  of  the  types  of  phe- 
nomena to  which  we  have  referred  could  take  place  if  mem- 
bers of  groups  were  not  in  a  measure  reciprocally  helpful.  We 
shall  presently  turn  our  attention  to  the  co-operative  element 
of  the  social  process.  There  is  a  law  of  diminuendo  value 
governing  the  struggle  phase,  and  of  crescendo  value  govern- 
ing the  socializing  phase,  of  the  social  process.  That  is,  the 
process  tends  to  pass  from  struggle  into  approximate  status, 
which  in  turn  becomes  basis  for  higher  differentiation  of  inter- 
ests, with  incidental  elimination  of  primary  phases  of  struggle. 
The  series  is  therefore  something  like  this :  Unregulated  ivar, 
regulated  war,  extension  of  the  area  and  duration  of  intermit- 
tent strife,  legally  regulated  conflict  of  interests,  fraud,  legal 
trickery,  fair  rivalry,  emulation,  reasoned  co-operation.  In 
other  words,  while  an  element  of  conflict  is  always  present  in 
social  relations,  we  have  now  to  consider  phases  of  the  move- 
ment from  a  maximum  toward  a  minimum  of  conflict,  or 
from  a  minimum  toward  a  maximum  of  helpful  reciprocity. 

We  are  still  representing  Ratzenhofer's  method  of 
approach.  The  remainder  of  the  argument  will  be  more 
briefly  epitomized,  and  we  can  comment  upon  only  a  few  cardi- 
nal points.  To  assist  in  adjusting  the  perspective,  we  present, 
as  before,  a  modified  topical  index  of  this  part  of  the  analysis : 

THE   SOCIALIZING   PROCESS    IN    CIVIC    GROUPS 

1.  Recapitulation  of  the  Struggle  Phase. 

2.  Contrast  between  the  Struggle  Phase  and  the  Social  Phase.     [Sec.  86]  ' 
'P.  203. 

*  The  figures  in  brackets  are  the  numbers  of  sections  in  Ratzenhofer's 
Wesen  und  Zweck. 

325 


326  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

3.  The  Content  of  Civilization.      [Sec.  58] 

4.  Contrasted   Principles  of  Civilization  and  Barbarism.      [Sees.  59,  60] 

5.  The  Ideal  of  Civilization.     [Sec.  61] 

6.  Stages  in  the  Development  of  Civilization.     [Sec.  62] 

7.  The  Function  of  Law  in  Civilization.     [Sec.  63] 

8.  By-products  of  Struggle  Added  to  Civilization.      [Sec.  64] 

9.  Direct  Effects  of  the  Civilizing  Forces.     [Sec.  65] 

10.  The  Ideal  of  Civilization  as  a  Means  of  Progress.      [Sec.  66] 

11.  The  Ideal  of  Civilization  as  a  Test  of  Political  Systems.     [Sec.  67] 

12.  The  Ideal  of  Civilization  as  a  Nucleus   of   Social   Groups.      [Sec.   68] 

13.  The  Ideal  of  Civilization  as  a  Modifier   of    Political    Struggle.      [Sec. 

69] 

14.  The    Form     Which     Material     Interests    Assume    in    the     Civilizing 
Process.     [Sec.  70] 

15.  The  Specific  Interests  at  Present  Struggling  for  Civilization.     [Sec.  71] 

16.  The  Civilizing  Program  in  Action  in  the  State.     [Sees.  72-74] 

17.  The  International  Problems  of  Civilization.     [Sec.  75] 

18.  The  Relation  of  Civilization  to  the  Integrity  of  States.     [Sec.  76] 

19.  The  Dependence   of    Civilizing    Progress    upon    the    Social    Situation. 

[Sec.  ^^\ 

20.  The  Antithesis  between  International  Conflicts  and  Civilization.     [Sec. 
78] 

21.  The  Significance  of  International   Law   for  Civilization.      [Sec.   79] 

22.  The  Bearings  of  Trade  upon  Civilization.     [Sec.  80] 

23.  The  Bearings  of  Colonization  upon   Civilization.     [Sec.  81] 

24.  The  Bearings  of  International    Agreements    upon    Civilization.      [Sec. 
82] 

25.  The  Bearings  of  Combinations   between    Citizens   of   Different    States 
upon  Civilization. 

A.  The  Effects  of  the  Civilizing  Social  Process.     [Sec.  83] 

B.  Civilizing  Social  Politics  and  the  Civilized  State.     [Sec.  84] 

C.  The  Present  Status  of  Civilizing  Social  Politics.     [Sec.  85] 

26.  General  Traits  of  the  Civilizing  Tendency  in  the  Social  Process.     [Sec. 
86] 

27.  The  Political  Means  Available  for  Socialization.   [Sec.  87] 

28.  The  Maximum  and  Minimum  Levels  of  Socialization.     [Sec.  88] 

29.  The  Mobilization  of  Politics  in  the  Interest  of  Socialization.    [Sec.  89] 

30.  The  .Sciences  in  the  Service  of  Civilization.     [Sec.  90] 

31.  Religion  and  Civilization.     [Sec.  91] 

32.  Concluding  Survey.     [Sec.  92] 

We  have  explained  at  such  length  the  significance  of  the 
different  titles  in  Ratzenhofer's  scheme  of  analyzing  the  striig- 


GENERAL  SURVEY  327 

gle  factor  in  the  social  process,  that  it  will  not  be  necessary  for 
our  present  purpose  to  continue  the  explanation  at  great  length 
in  connection  with  the  co-operative  factor  of  the  process.  Our 
immediate  argument  claims  merely  that  Ratzenhofer's  scheme 
is  the  most  conclusive  evidence  up  to  date  that  relative 
nescience  reigns  in  the  place  of  a  desirable  science  of  the  social 
process.  The  scheme  is  a  system  of  theorems,  amounting  to  a 
tentative  survey  ofl^he  social  process  considered  as  a  progress- 
ive adjustment  of  interests  between  persons  zvhose  vision  is 
trained  at  first  solely  on  ends  as  they  appear  from  the  indi- 
vidual standpoint.  Whether  the  theorems  themselves  will 
stand  is  relatively  unimportant.  The  main  thing  is  that  no 
previous  attempt  to  explain  human  experience  as  a  whole  has 
been  projected  upon  an  equally  literal  perception  of  what  is 
actually  going  on  in  society.  Analysis  of  the  social  process, 
according  to  this  scheme  at  all  events,  deals  with  reality,  and 
correction  of  specific  theorems,  addition  to  their  number,  and 
synthesis  of  them  in  an  exhaustive  account  of  the  social  process 
are  matters  of  detail. 

To  enforce  this  argument,  we  may  briefly  review  the  pre- 
vious analysis,  and  indicate  its  general  connections  with  the 
complementary  aspect  of  the  process  now  to  be  considered.  In 
the  first  place,  we  may  express  the  whole  argument  in  its  most 
general  form  as  follows : 

The  order  of  associational  development  may  be  symbolized 
by  the  terms:  one,  struggle;  two,  moralization ;  three,  social- 
ization. The  differentia  observed  in  the  series  are  quantitative 
rather  than  qualitative;  i.  e./we  trace  a  passage  from  less  to 
more  integration  in  a  common  process.  The  symbolic  terms 
chosen  are  selected,  not  because  they  are  supposed  to  be  exclu-^ 
sive,  but  because  they  are  evidently  non-exclusive.  Each  con- 
notes something  of  the  others.  One  involves  a  minimum  of 
three.  Three  contains  a  minimum  of  one.  Two  is  merely  a 
conveniently  chosen  stadium  between  one  and  three.  It  is 
potentially,  and  in  part  actually,  in  one;  it  is  developed  and 
extended  in  three.    Morality,  as  we  propose  to  use  the  term. 


328  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

is  the  type  of  modus  vivcndi  recognized  at  any  given  stage  of 
the  associational  process,  by  the  persons  conscious  of  asso- 
ciation, as  appropriate  to  their  association.  Not  the  per- 
sons passing  judgment,  but  the  associational  process  itself 
which  they  implicitly  judge,  renders  the  last  valuation 
of  a  morality  which  it  is  possible  for  men  to  justify. 
When  struggle  has  become  so  moralized  that  it  loses  the  out- 
ward marks  of  struggle,  in  regularly  co-ordinated  interchange 
among  all  the  persons  in  contact,  under  the  prevailing  idea 
that  the  good  of  the  whole  is  paramount  to  the  good  of  the 
parts,  considered  as  having  an  existence  in  antithesis  with  the 
whole,  we  have  a  quantitatively  intense  association,  with  a 
modus  vivcndi  of  its  own,  which  contrasts  sharply  with  all 
the  previous  mechanical  regulations  of  categorical  morality. 

Again,  the  stages  between  struggle  and  socialization  may 
be  distinguished  qualitatively  in  this  way :  One  connotes  indi- 
viduals convinced,  either  emotionally  or  intellectually,  of  an 
individuality  which  is  predominantly  antagonistic  to  other 
individuals.  Not  recalling  now  in  detail  our  analysis  of  the 
content  of  the  individual  element,  but  assuming  that  this  con- 
tent is  in  principle  constant,  we  restate  the  progress  of  indi- 
viduals from  struggle  to  socialization  as  a  passage  through 
(fl)  recognition  of  other  individuals  (or  groups)  ;  (&)  advance 
toward  recognition  of  equal  value  in  other  individuals  (or 
groups)  ;  (c)  progressive  discrimination  of  the  elements  of 
value  thus  to  be  recognized;  {d)  progressive  extension  of 
the  diameter  of  these  recognitions  until  it  includes  all  men. 

The  foregoing  general  statement  may  be  made  more  par- 
ticular, as  follows : 

When  we  attempt  to  get  a  Ijird's-eye  view  of  the  social 
process  under  civic  conditions,  we  detect  at  the  start  indi- 
vidual interests,  developed  into  the  composite  interests  of 
groups,  clustered  around  centers  which  may  be,  for  example, 
racial,  confessional,  vocational,  social  (in  the  restricted  sense), 
corporate,  factional,  etc.,  etc. 

As  another  phase  of  these  same  or  like  composite  interests, 


GENERAL  SURVEY  329 

we  have  in  every  State  all  the  phenomena  of  parties,  alHances, 
intrigues,  combinations,  principally  on  the  basis  of  political 
struggle;  but  also,  both  as  independent  movements  and  as 
complications  of  the  political  struggle,  on  the  basis  of  reli- 
gious, economic,  and  social  class  interests.  Incidental  to  this 
stress  of  struggle  for  existence  between  interests  we  have 
those  familiar  figures,  politicians,  statesmen,  administrative 
functionaries,  agitators,  popular  leaders,  party  leaders,  dema- 
gogues, heads  of  States,  political  theorists,  etc.  Then  we 
have  the  analogues  of  all  these  in  the  economic,  artistic,  social, 
scientific,  and  religious  sections  of  conduct.  Between  all  these, 
as  incidents  of  the  reactions  between  them,  we  have  all  the 
phenomena  of  control,  by  all  the  different  means  analyzed  by 
Ross  ^  and  studied  genetically  by  Tarde.'*  Furthermore,  we 
have  the  whole  system  of  tactics  and  strategy,  of  the  personal, 
economic,  political,  aesthetic,  scientific,  and  religious  orders,  by 
which  the  means  of  combination  and  control  are  employed. 
Besides  and  beyond  all  this,  we  have  the  reactions  of  States 
with  the  rest  of  the  world  outside  their  borders.  In  this  view 
^States  manifest  interests  in  solidifying  their  own  structures, 
in  maintaining  their  own  traditions,  in  clearing  the  way  for 
intercourse  of  all  desirable  sorts  with  other  States, 

These  phenomena  involve  more  or  less  of  reference  to 
extension  of  territory,  sometimes  by  way  of  aggression,  some- 
times merely  as  an  incident  in  the  program  of  insuring  the 
existing  situation,  also  more  or  less  of  peaceful  commercial  and 
other  invasion  of  new  regions,  and  protection  of  the  points  of 
vantage  once  occupied.  Whether  necessary  before  or  not, 
contact  of  States  with  other  States  involves  also  war,  or  the 
means  of  waging  war :  armaments,  troops,  military  resources. 
In  addition  to  this  we  find,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  actual 
States  betray  characteristics  which  mark  them  off  as  "great 
powers,"  and  then  as  lesser  powers,  in  a  descending  scale  of 
innumerable  degrees.  These  States  are  conservative  or  aggres- 
sive in  almost  equal  variety.     They  pursue  interests  that  are 

'  Social  Control.  *  Transformations  du  pouvoir. 


330  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  all  sorts,  from  those  of  pure  nature  peoples,  through  the 
various  degrees  of  technical  culture;  from  persistent  isola- 
tion, to  the  most  extensive  and  sympathetic  cosmopolitanism; 
from  the  most  accidental  and  transitory  program,  to  the  most 
systematic  and  constant.  We  discover,  as  incidents  of  exter- 
nal reaction,  the  general  conditions  of  peace  alternating  with 
war,  and  such  particular  incidents,  tributary  to  one  or  both, 
as  commercial  agreements,  international  conferences,  arbitra- 
tions, interventions,  peace  treaties,  congresses,  neutralities, 
non-interventions,  isolated  policies,  "good  offices,"  armistices, 
diplomatic  formalities,  etc.,  etc.  Through  all  these  movements 
we  detect  the  pervasive  presence  of  certain  great  combinations 
of  interest :  e.  g.,  the  fraternity  of  democratic  sentiment 
throughout  the  western  world;  the  freemasonry  of  the  nobil- 
ity throughout  Europe;  the  class  interests  of  the  great  capi- 
talists; the  distinctive  interests  of  the  vastly  more  numerous 
middle  class ;  the  peculiar  interests  of  the  great  racial  divisions, 
both  controlling  whole  States  and  constituting  important  fac- 
tors within  States;  the  characteristic  religious  interests,  for 
example,  of  the  three  great  religious  divisions  in  the  western 
world,    the  Jewish,  the  Roman  Catholic,  and  the  Protestant. 

Now,  the  unsolved  problem  is :  What  do  all  these  familiar 
things  mean?  The  sociologist  has  not  invented  this  problem. 
Every  man  who  casts  a  vote,  or  expresses  by  word  or  deed  an 
opinion  about  his  own  and  his  neighbor's  rights  and  duties,  is 
implicitly  working  on  this  problem,  or  assuming  some  part 
of  its  solution.  Every  program  of  organizing  social  action, 
from  a  neighborhood  improvement  association  to  a  concert  of 
the  powers,  assumes  a  theory  in  explanation  of  this  confusion, 
that  is  at  last  an  interpretation  of  it  genetically,  statically,  and 
tendentially.  f  The  sociologist  simply  takes  up  everybody's 
problem,  and  hopes  by  specialization  upon  it  to  make  percep- 
tions in  the  line  of  solution  more  penetrating.  "} 

The  question,  What  does  all  the  action  in  the  State  mean? 
cannot  be  solved  by  simply  describing  that  action.  As  we  have 
urged  above,"''  nothing  can  be  described  until  we  know  what  it  is 

'Pp.   33.   34- 


GENERAL  SURVEY  331 

for./  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  impossible  to  find  out  what  action 
in  the  State  is  for,  until  we  are  able  to  describe  it  sufficiently 
to  make  out  some  of  its  implications.  On  the  basis,  then,  of 
such  analyses  and  descriptions  of  action  within  the  State  as 
are  thus  far  available;  our  present  task  is  to  gather  up  all  that 
we  can  discover  about  the  tendencies  implied  in  State  action; 
not  what  the  actors  individually  and  immediately  want,  but 
what  their  actions  inevitably  tend  to  bring  to  pass.  In  this 
way  only  can  we  reach,  on  the  one  hand,  a  rational  criticism 
of  action  as  we  see  it  at  present,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  specu- 
lative conceptions  of  what  social  action  should  be.  )  On  this 
basis  only  can  we  arrive  at  tenable  ideas  of  the  implicit  content 
of  socialization,  or  form  respectable  judgments  of  the  tech- 
nological programs  fit  to  promote  advance  toward  socializa- 
tion. 

As  we  have  indicated  above,  we  find  the  apparent  reading 
of  the  universal  course  of  action  in  States  in  the  formula 
struggle  based  upon  the  narrowest  selfishness,  resolving  itself 
gradually  into  a  moralization  that  tends  toivard  socialization 
inspired  by  the  broadest  selfishness.  Barbarism  is  the  activity 
of  very  partially  realized  individuals  within  very  narrowly 
restricted  relations.  Civilization  is  the  activity  of  very  highly 
developed  individuals  within  widely  correlated  relations.  The 
social  process  moves  from  one  pole  toward  the  other.  The 
process,  then,  which  we  discover  is  a  progress  from  the  least 
realised  individuals  in  the  least  realized  association,  to  the 
most  realized  individuals  in  the  most  realized  association./ 

The  struggle  that  we  trace,  first  forming  States,  and  then 
proceeding  through  the  system  of  movements  in  and  between 
States  which  we  term  in  general  ''politics,"  is  in  essence  a 
struggle  of  public  groups  against  the  selfishness  of  individu- 
als.^ The  tendency  —  and  so  we  may  say,  in  a  certain  sense, 
the  purpose  —  of  the  struggle  is  the  common  good  of  the  indi- 
viduals. We  may  state  our  problem  again,  then,  in  this  form : 
C Given  the  historical  and  contemporary  actions  of  men  stimu- 

'  JVesen  und  Zweck,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  401. 


332  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

lated  by  each  one's  appraisal  of  his  own  good,  to  Und  the  com- 
mon good  imperfectly  foreshadowed  in  each  individual's 
implicit  conceptions  of  his  separate  good. 

Since  the  purpose  implicit  in  State  action  is  achievement  of 
the  common  good,/ the  accompHshment  of  selfish  purposes  on 
the  part  of  individuals  depends  at  last  upon  the  circumstances 
that  the  good  of  the  individual  must  be  dependent  upon  the 
political  condition  of  the  whole,  while  the  reverse  is  not  in  the 
same  sense  the  case.  The  essence  of  the  struggle,  which  the 
social  process  tends  to  reduce  to  a  minimum,  is  its  virtual 
attempt  to  subordinate  the  whole  to  the  selfishness  of  the  indi- 
vidual. The  tendency  of  the  social  process  is  thus  in  sharp 
antithesis  with  the  essence  of  the  struggle  incidental  to  the 
process.  Yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  process  goes  on  by 
means  of  this  unsocial  and  even  anti-social  spirit.  The  anom- 
aly is  perhaps  no  greater,  however,  than  that  presented  by  the 
facts  of  mechanics.  Friction  is  the  condition  both  in  spite  of 
which  and  by  means  of  which  power  is  applied.  From  a  lay- 
man's point  of  view,  a  machine  may  be  described  as  a  working 
compromise  between  the  obstructive  and  the  constructive  pos- 
sibilities of  friction.  In  a  closely  analogous  sense,  the  State 
/  is  a  working  compromise  between  the  unsocializing  and  the 
socializing  possibilities  of  individual  selfishness.  The  social 
process  can  use  no  tow-line  made  fast  to  a  power  outside  of 
social  struggle  itself  that  will  drag  society  toward  its  goal. 
Struggle  must  overcome  struggle,  and  prescribe  the  limits  and 
laws  of  struggle,  and  at  last  transform  itself  into  socialization. 

We  thus  make  out^the  main  tendency  of  civic  struggle  to 
be  the  ultimate  harmonization  of  all  interests.  This  result  we 
call  socialization  or  civilization.  To  what  extent  this  har- 
monization will  prove  possible  it  is  unnecessary  to  predict. 
We  can  see  far  enough  into  the  tendency  to  reach  teleological 
ground  that  is  secure,  and  it  furnishes  a  base  for  our  judg- 
ments of  the  progressive  or  retrogressive  quality  of  particu- 
lar kinds  of  action. 

Advancing  now   from  the  point  of  view  natural  to  each 


GENERAL  SURVEY  333 

individual  at  his  least  socialized  stage,  we  discover  that  prog- 
ress from  unmitigated  struggle  toward  relative  socialization  is 
always  through  gradual  and  largely  unconscious  adjustment 
of  individual  interests,  to  widening  circumferences  of  social 
interests.)  This  process  first  results  in  a  certain  approximate 
socialization  within  the  State,  and  it  presently  presses  out- 
ward, with  prospect  of  carrying  increasing  amounts  of  the 
adjustment  over  into  contacts  with  other  peoples,  until  the 
whole  human  family  is  included  in  approximate  socialization. 

(^Selfishness  is  raised  to  a  higher  power,  as  it  passes  from  the 
selfishness  of  the  self-centered  individual  into  the  selfishness 
successively  of  the  members  of  the  family,  the  tribe;j^the  com- 
munity, the  State,  the  world-society,  and  at  last  in  some  cases 
into  fellowship  with  men  still  unborn,  no  less  than  \IBh  the 
present  human  family.     Morality,  in  theory  and  in  practice, 

(is  an  idea  or  a  realization  of  proportions  and  adjustments 
within  these  various  diameters.  Morality,  as  theory  or  as 
practice,  (yaries  with  the  extent  and  with  the  circumstances  of 
these  overlapping  areas  whose  necessities  conduct  tries  to  sat- 
isfy. That  is  supposed  to  be  moral  which  seems  to  satisfy  all 
the  conditions  involved.'''  Changes  in  conceptions  of  morality 
are  due  to  changes  in  judgment  about  the  actual  effect  of  con- 
duct, or  to  changes  in  apprehension  of  the  conditions  con- 
cerned, or  to  changes  in  the  diameter  of  the  conditions  brought 
into  calculation,  or  to  all  three  in  co-operation. 

It  is  merely  repeating  the  implications  of  the  first  sentence 
of  the  preceding  paragraph  to  say  that  the  morality  of  bar- 
barism is  in  the  narrozvest  practicable  degree  individual;  the 
morality  of  civilization  is  in  the  widest  practicable  degree 
social;  the  morality  of  each  intervening  stage  is  a  mode  of 
accommodation  to  diameters  of  relationship  at  innumerable 
removes  from  these  extremes.  What  passes  as  morality  at  any 
given  time  is  the  ethical  deposit  of  experience  up  to  that  stage. 
In  so  far  as  law  represents  the  consciousness  of  utility  in  the 
group  within  which  it  applies,  rather  than  the  mere  selfish- 

'  Cf.  chap.  42. 


334  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

ness  of  a  law-giving  person  or  group,  it  is  in  approximate 
assertion  of  the  ethical  perceptions  implied  in  the  group  moral- 
ity. Frank  struggle  has  use  for  the  customs,  including  all 
the  shades  of  foolhardiness  for  theisake  of  prospective  selfish 
gain,  that  barbarians  practice.  Socialization  makes  another 
/sort  of  conduct  the  program,  viz.,  a  practice  of  self-surrender 
■  in  the  common  interest  —  a  sort  of  conduct  of  which  only 
highly  developed  people  are  capable.  ''  The  more  exclusively 
self-devotion  aims  to  serve  individual  interest,  the  farther  is 
it  from  the  morality  of  genuine  socialization.  The  larger  .the 
community  to  which  it  dedicates  itself,  the  nearer  is  it  to  the 
morality  of  genuine  socialization.^ 

An  obvious  qualification  is  lacking  in  the  last  proposition, 
translated  rather  freely  from  Ratzenhofer.  Extension  of 
interest  and  dedication  of  action  so  as  to  affect  a  wide  area 
may  amount  to  an  intermediate  something  which  is  neither 
brutal  egoism,  on  the  one  hand,  nor  enlightened  socialization, 
on  the  other.  It  is  a  sort  of  transcendentalism  that  dissipates 
good  intentions  so  that  they  are  socially  worthless,  or  nearly 
so,  instead  of  being  narrowly  serviceable  to  the  individual  or 
rationally  serviceable  to  his  social  environment.  Classic 
instances  are  large  parts  of  the  phenomena  of  mediaeval  mona- 
chism,  which  withdrew  some  of  the  most  capable  from  the 
actual  work  of  the  world,  for  profitless  dreaming  about  a  con- 
ceptual state;  or  the  cosmopolitanism  of  the  Renaissance, 
which  speculated  on  the  progress  of  humanity  in  general,  but 
so  wantonly  neglected  near  social  tasks  that  demoralization 
and  decay  of  institutions  are  as  evident  during  the  period  as 
the  development  of  general  ideas.  The  mother  who  chooses 
to  devote  her  energies  to  the  good  of  heathen  in  Africa,  while 
her  children  are  left  to  grow  up  as  heathen  at  home,  is  not  in 
rational  contrast  with  the  mother  who  allows  her  family  to 
monopolize  her  physical  and  spiritual  energies,  f  The  area  of 
the  interests  to  which  conduct  is  devoted  is  not  the  sole  meas- 
ure of  the  morality  or  socialization  of  that  conduct. ;  Another 

'  IVescn  und  Zu<cck,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  402. 


GENERAL  SURVEY  335 

important  test  is  the  conformity  of  the  conduct  to  the  implicit 
requirements  of  the  area  within  which  it  functions.  That  is, 
a  moraHty  which  condones  sHpshod  family  conduct,  and 
neglectful  local  conduct,  if  joined  with  State-patriotism  or 
world-humanitarianism,  is  defective  just  as  a  military  system 
would  be  which  concentrated  attention  upon  the  principles  of 
strategy,  but  neglected  the  elementary  considerations  of  food 
and  clothing  and  equipment  and  discipline  for  the  soldiers. 
With  this  understood  as  a  proviso,  the  principle  alleged  at 
the  close  of  the  last  paragraph  is  correct. 

In  every  community  the  amount  and  quality  of  moralization 
in  the  law  actually  in  force  depend  upon  the  extent  to  which 
primitive  egoism  has  broadened  itself  in  that  State  into  care 
for  a  general  or  community  welfare.  This  being  the  case,  the 
law  in  force  in  any  community  is  always  an  index  of  the 
extent  to  which  socialization  is  contemplated  in  the  conscious 
purposes  of  the  community.  These  may  fall  below  the  stand- 
ards of  statutes,  some  of  which  are  so  ideal  that  they  are  dead 
letters,  and  they  may  rise  above  the  standards  of  other  statutes, 
which  call  for  a  minimum  of  sociality  that  falls  short  of 
demands  effectively  maintained  by  the  general  conscience. 

As  we  have  observed  above,  socialization  comes  about  as  a 
consummation  of  struggle.  It  is  not  something  entirely  apart 
from  struggle.  It  is  rather  refinement  of  struggle  and  puri- 
fication of  the  products  of  struggle.  Socialization  progresses 
through  incessant  struggle  of  one  egoism  against  another, 
modified  by  the  more  or  less  clearly  distinguished  interest  of 
a  more  general  welfare.  Every  step  toward  socialization  costs 
struggle  with  unsocialized  human  elements.  In  the  social 
struggle,  especially  as  it  is  visible  in  politics,  the  essence  of 
selfishness  manifests  itself  in  the  lust  for  power,  over  persons 
or  property  or  both. 

Those  who  are  swayed  by  this  passion  are  eager  to  accom- 
plish their  selfish  purposes  by  egoistic  subordination  of  the 
community.  Conquests,  dictatorships,  tyrannies,  demagog- 
isms  have  their  impulse  usually  in  the  narrowly  anti-social 


336  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

impulses  of  individuals.  Deeds  of  violence  a.  tong  men  are 
natural  consequences  of  the  same.  But  it  is  not  the  despotic 
individual  alone  that  subordinates  the  community  to  special 
interests.  Parties,  creeds,  racial  groups,  and  governments  do 
the  same  thing.  The  proper  symptom  of  the  existence  of  com- 
mon welfare,  or  socialization,  is  not  the  logical  opposite  of 
lust  of  power,  viz.,  surrender  of  power.  As  we  have  said, 
struggle  is  essential  to  progress  toward  socialization.  The 
most  violent  sorts  of  struggle  may  be  prompted  by  sense  of 
common  need  of  suppressing  subversive  power.  So  soon,  how- 
ever, as  violence  goes  beyond  the  necessary  means  of  checking 
subversion,  it  in  turn  begins  to  be  aggression  and  subversionu^ 

In  a  word,  the  impulse  toward  socialization  moves  toward 
extension  and  increase  of  communities.  It  thus  releases  the 
individual  from  the  narrowest  circle  of  interests.  It  conse- 
quently substitutes  for  the  most  primitive  communities  larger 
communities.  It  causes  the  former  to  merge  themselves  into 
more  complete  associations,  up  to  the  compass  of  States.  This 
process  incidentally  frees  the  individuals  concerned  from  every 
bond  involved  in  the  narrower  association  exclusively.  Thus 
the  indicated  goal  of  welfare  in  the  political  process  is  libera- 
tion, or  liberalization.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  associations  are 
dissolved,  and  bonds  are  destroyed  which  in  the  given  state  of 
civilization  are  necessary,  liberation  threatens  to  go  to  the 
extreme  of  anarchy.  The  latter  is  ultimately  not  less  destruc- 
tive of  socialization  than  is  despotism.  In  case  anarchy 
threatens,  forcible  control  m.ay  become  once  more  the  indi- 
cated instrument  of  the  process  toward  civilization. 

There  are  also  cases  in  which  opposition  to  enlargement 
of  the  State  is,  like  anarchy,  a  symptom  of  tendency  back 
from  socialization  to  individualistic  isolation  from  the  inevi- 
table social  process.  In  these  cases  the  opposition  may  borrow 
the  phrases  of  lofty  sentiment  in  protest  against  imagined  or 
constructive  wrongs.  There  is  need  of  delicate  discrimination 
between  righteous  refusal  to  sanction  aggression,  and  blind 
resistance  to  liberal  widening  of  the  range  of  socialization.*^ 

'  Loc.  cit.,  p.  404. 


GENERAL  SURVEY  337 

The  process  toward  socialization  accordingly  proves,  upon 
close  inspection,  to  be  not  a  uniform  and  unbroken  series  of 
emancipations  from  fetters,  and  of  extensions  of  political  com- 
munities. It  is  rather  an  alternation  of  emancipation,  con- 
straint, and  even  violence.  In  this  alternating  process  the 
results  of  narrowly  selfish  lust  of  power  are  gradually  elimi- 
nated; viz.,  on  the  one  hand  unbridled  aggression,  on  the  other 
hand  helpless  subservience.  Neither  constraint  nor  liberation 
alone  is  the  sure  mark  of  the  socializing  process.  The  recipro- 
cal working  of  the  two  in  carrying  on  the  social  process  toward 
the  goal  of  complete  socialization  is  the  wholesome  societary 
condition. 

Professor  Adler,  of  Berlin,  has  quoted  Heraclitus  of 
Ephesus  and  Kant  as  having  reached  this  perception  quite  dis- 
tinctly.^^ In  the  words  of  the  former :  "  Conflict  is  the  law 
of  the  world,  the  father  and  king  of  all  things.  Whatever 
things  strive  with  each  other  thereby  procure  mutual  support. 
C_The  harmony  of  the  world  rests  upon  opposing  tension,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  lyre  and  the  bow."  And  Kant  said :  "  The 
means  which  nature  uses  to  bring  to  pass  the  development  of 
all  her  resources  is  the  antagonism  of  the  same  in  society.  All 
culture  which  adorns  humanity,  the  refinements  of  social  order, 
are  merely  the  fruits  of  unsociability." 

It  is,  of  course,  a  matter  of  nice  discrimination  to  know, 
during  crises  of  the  social  process  —  and  every  self-conscious 
passage  of  experience  is  a  crisis  —  whether  assertions  of  force 
in  the  interest  of  order,  or  demands  for  relaxation  of  con- 
straint in  the  interest  of  liberation,  are  the  timely  means  of 
most  direct  approach  to  more  socialization.  It  is  by  no  means 
a  perfectly  easy  matter  to  decide,  even  in  historical  cases, 
whether  a  given  piece  of  conduct  was  condueive  to  resolution 
of  the  situation  in  which  it  occurred  into  a  more  securely 
socialized  situation.  We  may,  however,  formulate  certain 
general  principles  in  accordance  with  which  our  judgment  must 
try  to  distinguish  between  social  and  anti-social  tendencies. 

'"'Die  Zukunft  der  socialen  Frage,  p.  i. 


338  "  GENER.\L  SOCIOLOGY 

f 

For  instance,  it  is  a  mark  of  obstructive,  anti-social  self-seeking 
to  persist  in  employing  force  to  maintain  an  obsolete  order,  or 
fragments  of  such  order.  It  is  a  mark  of  the  socializing  tend- 
ency, whether  of  impulse  or  not  in  the  persons  manifesting 
the  tendency,  to  oppose  such  stultifying  action  by  force,  if 
necessary,  in  the  interest  of  intenser  socialization.  On  the  other 
hand,  premature  dissolution  of  social  bonds  necessary  to  pre- 
serve social  gains  is  the  result  in  practice  which  condemns  theo- 
retical anarchism.  Anarchy  in  application  is  not  merely  vio- 
lence. It  is  violence  that  destroys  some  of  the  foundations  or 
roots  necessary  to  progress.  Anarchy  is  thus  in  sharp  con- 
trast with  constructive  revolution.  The  latter  destroys  obso- 
lete authorities  and  civic  powers,  but  it  substitutes  for  them 
timely  authorities  and  powers  suited  to  conservation  and  stimu- 
lation of  the  socializing  process.  Thus  the  American  Revolu- 
tion, beginning  in  single  colonies,  like  Rhode  Island  and 
Virginia,  was  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  French  Revolution. 
In  the  former,  the  same  act  which  renounced  allegiance  to 
King  George  proclaimed  the  sovereignty  of  the  local  common- 
wealth, and  thus  assured  continuance  of  an  orderly  develop- 
ment. In  the  latter,  abolition  of  the  monarchy  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Terror.  In  all  cases  the  lust  of  power  and  irre- 
sponsible exercise  of  power  drag  the  common  weal  down 
toward  sacrifice  to  open  or  disguised  private  greed.)  The 
impulses  of  a  Marat  and  of  a  Napoleon  are  similar.  The  cir- 
cumstances give  them  a  slightly  different  effect. 

It  is  merely  another  formal  principle,  useful  as  a  guide  to 
concrete  judgments,  to  say  that  the  common  weal  demands  a 
correct  conception  of  the  working  balance  between  liberation 
and  constraint,  as  that  balance  appears  in  the  actual  conduct 
of  the  State  in  practical  politics.  We  have  called  the  common 
welfare  a  consummation  of  individual  welfare.  The  proposi- 
tions just  added  point  out  that  the  actual  process  toward 
socialization,  in  the  State  in  which  this  common  welfare  is 
realized,  is  a  consummation  of  the  original  process  of  struggle 
antecedent  to  the  State.     Now,  the  spirit  of  egoistic  selfishness, 


GENERAL  SURVEY  339 

that  is  at  its  highest  power  in  this  primitive  struggle,  is  the 
spirit  that  holds  decisive  control  whenever  there  is  persistent 
struggle  to  continue  social  conditions  as  they  are.  On  the  other 
hand^the  common  weal  and  the  socializing  spirit  always  press 
in  the  general  direction  of  liberation  and  enlargement  of  the 
association.  While  the  socializing  spirit  is  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  spirit  of  obstinate  persistence  in  obstructive  con- 
ditions, it  secures  corresponding  socializing  results  only  l)y 
restraining  its  demands  for  liberation  within  limits  that  respect 
individual  needs^  and  the  actual  state  of  socialization.  What 
this  means  in  the  concrete  differs,  of  course,  with  every  turn 
of  the  kaleidoscope  of  social  action. 

The  social  process  is  thus,  in  other  zvords,  a  perpetual  read- 
justment of  equilibrium  betzveen  forces  that  tend  backzvard 
tozvard  more  struggle,  and  those  that  tend  forzvard  tozvard 
more  socialization.  The  stages  in  the  social  process,  so  con- 
ceived, are  marked  most  vividly  by  the  degrees  in  which  the 
dominance  of  absolute  hostility  appears.  Beginning  with 
the  state  of  association  of  the  type  represented  by  the 
formula,  "  His  hand  will  be  against  every  man,  and 
every  man's  hand  against  him,"  and  moving  forward 
toward  a  condition  which  we  may  think  of  as  a  com- 
munity of  humanity  in  consciousness  of  common  interest,  the 
dominance  of  unsocialized  individuality  diminishes.  This  is 
not  because  there  is  a  cessation  of  the  principle  of  hostility  — 
i.  e.,  of  individual  identity  in  men  —  but  because  there  is 
extended  pressure  for  harmonious  accommodation.  Progress- 
ing socialization  lays  down  a  deposit  of  recognized  morality, 
codified  in  a  growing  body  of  formal  law,  either  civic  or  social, 
with  corresponding  power  to  enforce  the  law.  These  factors 
partly  restrain  hostility,  partly  lead  it  with  wise  political  judg- 
ment into  useful  directions. 

The  final  force  in  the  social  process  is  always  the  force  of 
individuals,  and  these  individuals,  by  virtue  of  their  identity, 
must  always  be  in  a  sense  irreconcilable,  and  thus  hostile  to 
each  other,  because  identity  and  difference  are  necessary  cor- 


340  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

relates.  Out  of  this  hostility  springs  courage  for  struggle. 
This  hostility  alone  stimulates  and  sustains  the  ultimate  power 
to  carry  through  social  action.  This  hostility  indicates  also 
the  means  to  be  employed  in  attaining  the  ends  incident  to  the 
stages  of  the  social  process.  Thus  the  institutions  of  civiliza- 
tion draw  the  boundaries  w'ithin  which  approximate  peace  and 
good-will  must  reign.  Outside  of  these  boundaries  all  sorts 
of  strife  may  prevail,  from  personal  encounters  to  wars  of 
extermination.  The  social  process  from  more  struggle  to  less 
struggle  actually  goes  on  by  use  of  these  forcible  expressions 
of  the  hostilities  of  the  persons  struggling. 

There  can  be  no  effective  program  in  the  State  without  the 
use  of  these  forcible  means.  Whatever  physical  force  would 
be  necessary  to  carry  out  a  program  in  the  interest  of  unso- 
cialized  selfishness,  either  of  individuals  or  of  a  political  group, 
is  also  necessary  either  to  defeat  that  program,  or  to  carry 
through  the  same  program  with  social  intent.  Because  the 
purpose  of  an  action  is  social,  no  less  force  is  demanded  for  its 
execution.  Every  struggle  against  the  enemies  or  the  friends 
of  socialization  requires  superior  force  for  success,  and  more 
relentless  application  of  the  force  than  the  opponent  possesses 
or  uses.  To  this  extent,  and  in  this  sense.  Napoleon  was  right 
that  "  Providence  is  on  the  side  of  the  strongest  battalions. "^^ 

The  fact  to  which  we  have  just  referred  is  intelligible  only 
in  the  light  of  our  previous  analysis  of  the  social  process. 
Examined  in  this  light,  the  additional  perception  is  gained  that 
every  stage  of  development  in  the  social  struggle  is  accom- 
panied by  its  peculiar  views  of  political  or  social  ways  and 
means,  i.  e.,  the  habitual  morality  in  the  application  of  means 
to  bring  about  social  ends.  We  find  in  general  an  increase 
of  aversion  to  violent  means  in  the  interest  of  socialization. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  same  fact  may  l)e  expressed  as  pro- 
gressive adoption  of  peaceful  agreement  as  the  means  of  social 
adjustment.     This  does  not  prevent  the  use  of  the  most  ter- 

"  Wesen  and  Zwcck,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  406. 


GENERAL  SURVEY  341 

rific  means,  however,  when  some  of  the  most  important  steps 
toward  socialization  are  to  be  taken. 

Tlie  progressive  extension  of  political  communities  in  the 
socializing  process  always  involves,  as  one  of  its  incidents,  an 
approximate  equalization  of  the  power  at  the  disposal  of  indi- 
viduals. Within  each  political  community  there  must  exist 
in  principle  a  fundamental  equality  of  rights.  Community  of 
purpose  is  the  first  presupposition  antecedent  to  the  formation 
of  a  political  community.  Equality  of  right  within  the  com- 
munity is  equally  prerequisite  to  the  effectiveness  of  the  politi- 
cal community  in  accomplishing  its  purpose.  The  common 
weal  of  which  the  State  is  an  expression  forces  toward  equality 
of  right  within  the  State.  This  gravitation  is  not  brought 
about  by  the  supposed  disinterested  impulses  of  the  citizen, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  in  response  to  an  instinct  of  utility. 
There  is  within  the  State  a  reciprocity  of  interests  which 
demands  that  each  individual  shall  concede  rights  to  each  indi- 
vidual's interests,  in  order  that  there  may  be  a  cohesion 
between  all,  sufficient  to  constitute  the  necessary  community 
force,  for  its  peculiar  part  as  a  community  in  the  forward 
social  movement.  As  zeal  for  common  welfare  is  an  ennobled 
zeal  for  individual  welfare,  so  equalization  of  political  influ- 
ence is  a  refinement  of  the  strife  for  political  power.'  Since 
socialization  involves  progressive  dissolution  of  lesser  political 
communities,  in  order  that  they  may  be  merged  into  greater 
communities,  there  is  also  involved  extended  equalization  of 
political  power  in  general;  for  inequality  in  political  power 
presupposes,  and  rests  predominantly  upon,  the  establishment 
and  persistence  of  isolated  political  groups,  and  upon  a  vari- 
ously stratified  society. 

The  forces  that  prove  to  be  practical  in  socialization  have 
their  sources,  therefore,  in  the  essential  character  of  the  strug- 
gle that  moves  toward  civilization.  Common  weal  and  equal 
right  are,  however,  practical  results  of  the  social  struggle  and 
of  the  entire  aggregate  of  social  facts.  Just  as  all  the  moral 
precepts  sanctified  by  religion  are  merely  purified  conceptions 


342  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  the  practical  necessities  of  life,  so  common  weal  and  equal 
rights  are  practical  demands  of  socialization,  and  funda- 
mental premises  of  an  approximately  socialized  morality. 
.'  The  essence  of  socialization  thus  demands  the  functional 
'  equality  of  men  in  rights  and  in  the  elements  of  political 
power.  The  subordination  or  inclusion  of  all  communities 
within  the  common  purposes  of  mankind  in  general  waits, 
accordingly,  and  must  wait,  for  approximate  realization  of 
such  condition,  or  of  such  adaptability  in  the  individuals  and 
groups  concerned  that  the  merging  of  the  many  into  the  one 
could  be  accompanied  by  such  extension  of  equality  within 
the  reorganized  association.  Indeed,  the  far-off  ideal  of  social- 
ization, which  we  can  hardly  think  of  except  in  a  formal  way, 
has  little  more  than  this  as  its  content,  viz. :  we  are  obliged 
to  think  of  it  as  a  situation  in  which  satisfaction  of  the  univer- 
sal demand  for  relatively  equal  social  right,  and  command  of 
civic  influence,  will  be  realized.  This  adjustment,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  has  to  take  place  through  use  of  struggle  from  begin- 
ning to  end.  Individuals  and  groups,  from  least  to  greatest, 
have  to  be  suppressed  or  destroyed,  if  they  are  incapable  of 
accommodation  to  this  equalizing  program.  The  ethical  sen- 
timents of  men  sometimes  retard  this  process.  Sometimes  they 
mitigate  its  rigors.  They  can  never  permanently  abolish  it, 
for  it  is  given  in  the  necessities  of  the  social  process.  At  the 
same  time,  it  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  equalizing  process 
involved  in  socialization  is  a  process  of  reducing  mankind, 
either  individually  or  in  associations,  to  identity  of  form.  On 
the  contrary,  both  the  external  and  the  subjective  environ- 
ment of  individuals  and  associations  make  for  variety  in  the 
form  of  rights. 

The  struggle  which  we  have  traced  through  its  various 
stages,  from  unmitigated  violence  thrc^ugh  relative  morality 
to  maximum  socialization,  is  thus  a  struggle  in  which  the  best 
interests  and  all  the  interests  of  the  persons  struggling  are 
actually  the  issue.  The  persistence  of  the  struggle,  with  pro- 
gressive [perception  of  the  implications  of  the  struggle,  gradu- 


GENERAL  SURVEY  343 

ally  eliminates  more  and  more  of  the  distinctively  struggle 
features  of-  the  process,  and  substitutes  more  and  more  of  the 
elements  that  bear  the  impress  rather  of  the  emerging  moral- 
izing and  socializing  factors  implicit  even  in  the  most  naive 
stages  of  struggle. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS' 

In  our  analysis  of  the  social  process  thus  far  we  have  per- 
force placed  undue  emphasis  upon  the  mere  form  of  the 
process.  Whether  we  are  observing  one  part  of  the  process  or 
another,  the  really  significant  matter  is  not  the  form  of  the 
movement  that  is  going  on,  but  the  substance  of  the  occur- 
rences, as  it  appears  in  the  types  and  conditions  of  the  persons 
who  are  at  once  the  motors,  the  material,  and  the  output  of 
the  process.  In  turning  from  the  struggle  phase  to  the 
co-operative  phase  of  the  social  process,  we  do  more  than 
shift  attention  from  one  form  of  social  reaction  to  another. 
For  reasons  which  need  not  be  specified,  the  change  leads  far- 
ther, viz.,  to  emphasis  upon  what  the  process  in  its  present 
phase  is  accomplishing,  rather  than  upon  the  mere  mode  of  the 
process. 

For  convenience  in  presenting  the  theorem  of  this  chap- 
ter, we  may  assign  an  arbitrary  meaning  to  two  terms,  viz., 
"civilization"  and  "culture."  We  shall  use' the  term  "civili- 
zation "  as  synonymous  with  the  phrase  "  content  of  the  social 
process."-  By  either  of  these  expressions  we  mean  very  nearly 
what  Ward  would  include  in  the  term  "achievement."^ 
"  Civilization "  is  the  positive  outcome,  'up  to  a  given  time, 
of  men's  working  together.  It  is  the  sum  and  the  system  of 
men's  attainments  and  accomplishments,  measured  by  human 
units  rather  than  physical  units.'  "  Culture,"  as  we  use  the  term 
at  this  point,  is  the  total  equipment  of  technique,  mechanical, 
mental,  and  moral,  by  use  of  which  the  people  of  a  given  period 
try  to  attain  their  ends.^  In  a  secondary  and  tributary  sense, 
"  culture  "  has  to  be  included  in  "  achievement  "  or  "  civiliza- 

'  Wesen  und  Zweck,  sec.  59. 

*  Pure  Sociology,  Part  I,  chap.  3.  '  Cf .  p.  59,  above. 

344 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  345 

tion,"  but  the  distinction  must  be  sharply  drawn  between  the 
two  concepts  in  themselves.  The  achievement  or  civilization,  or 
content  of  the  social  process  up  to  a  given  stage,  becomes  the 
culture  or  equipment  of  the  men  who  continue  the  process  into 
the  next  stage.  In  other  words,  "  culture "  consists  of  the 
means  by  which  men  promote  their  individual  or  social  ends. 
"  Civilization  "  is  the  resultant  of  all  the  efforts  of  individuals 
to  promote  their  ends.  It  is  the  social  process  looked  at  from 
the  side  of  its  spiritual  output.  With  this  understanding,  the 
term  "civilization"  serves  to  interpret  the  title  of  this  chapter, 
and  the  term  "culture"  helps  to  fix  the  distinction  between  the 
social  process  considered  from  the  side  of  achievement,  and 
the  same  process  looked  at  merely  as  an  evolving  irwethod  of 
applying  means  to  ends,  with  the  least  possible  attention  to 
valuation  of  the  ends. 

This  distinction  is  as  old  as  Aristotle,  but  it  has  not  been 
used  for  all  it  is  worth  in  social  analysis.  -  "  Culture "  gets 
things  done,  but  "  civilization "  gets  for  widening  circles  of 
human  beings  a  share  in  the  use  of  the  things  done.  ""Cul- 
ture "  builds  marvelous  pyramids  by  consuming  uncounted 
slaves ;  "  civilization  "  admits  uncounted  freemen  to  parks,  and 
museums,  and  libraries,  and  picture  galleries.  Whatever 
makes  toward  restriction  of  the  enjoyment  of  culture  is  by  so 
much  a  phenomenon  merely  of  the  conflict  element  of  the  social 
process.  Whatever  makes  toward  extension  of  the  benefits  of 
culture  is  by  so  much  a  phenomenon  of  the  entire  social  process, 
the  correlation  of  conflict  and  co-operation,  or  "  civilization." 

"  Culture  "  and  "  civilization  "  are  not  to  be  understood  as 
antithetic  terms.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  not  co-ordinate 
categories.  The  former  is  a  technological,  the  latter  a  moral, 
concept.  "Culture"  is  a  generalization  of  means;  "civiliza- 
tion," of  ends.  "Culture"  in  itself  is  morally  indifferent.  It 
may  be  employed  either  to  promote  or  to  obstruct  "  civiliza- 
tion," We  accordingly  need  a  term  for  an  aggregate  of  tend- 
encies opposed  to  "  civilization."  For  this  generalization 
Ratzenhofer  employs  the  term  "barbarism."     As   "civiliza- 


346  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

tion  "  connotes  the  sum  of  social  achievement, -*' barbarism  " 
stands  for  each  and  every  development  that  suspends  or 
opposes  the  turning  of  ''culture"  to  social  advantage.-  "Civi- 
lization "  is  the  productive  or  constructive  content  of  the 
social  process;  "barbarism,"  the  consumptive  or  destructive 
abortion  of  the  social  process.  Expressed  in  the  other  way, 
some  activities,  whether  with  primary  reference  to  material 
or  to  spiritual  goods,  leave  the  persons  acting  in  possession  of 
more  or  better  resources  than  before  the  action.  They  are 
productive,  or  constructive,  or  civilizing.  Other  activities, 
such  as  exhausting  the  soil,  dissipation  of  physical  power, 
blunting  of  moral  sensibility,  are  wasteful,  destructive,  bar- 
baric. This  distinction,  expressed  here  as  a  merely  formal 
classification,  is  of  constant  importance  in  testing  values  of 
concrete  action. 

Some  of  the  most  obvious  mistakes  in  passing  judgment 
upon  nations,  epochs,  classes,  or  even  particular  actions,  come 
from  taking  "  culture  "  instead  of  "  civilization  "  as  the  stand- 
ard of  value.  Russia  today,  considered  as  a  whole,  is  a 
mighty  cultural  system.  .  It  exploits  nature  and  people  to  the 
end  that  a  few  may  be  rich,  and  powerful,  and  refined.  The 
thoughtful  of  other  nations  nevertheless  class  Russia  as  bar- 
barous, simply  because  the  "  culture  "  controlled  by  the  State 
is  only  in  a  limited  degree  a  means  of  developing  the  whole 
people.  It  is  rather  a  means  of  keeping  them  poor  and  igno- 
rant and  subservient.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  not  empty  national 
conceit  to  cite  our  own  republic,  in  its  infancy,  as  a  case  in 
which  "  civilization  "  was  in  advance  of  "  culture."  The  tech- 
nique possessed  by  the  new  nation  was  chiefly  that  of  a  rather 
primitive  agriculture,  of  the  necessary  handicrafts,  of  seaman- 
ship, of  the  woodsman  and  huntsman,  of  naive  pedagogy  and 
politics  and  religion.  Yet,  in  spite  of  the  poverty  of  this  tech- 
nical equipment,  there  was  guarantee  of  the  security  of  human 
values,  in  all  the  people  alike,  to  an  extent  that  had  never 
before  been  realized. 

In  general,  "barbarism"  and  social  conflict  are  correlates, 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  347 

while  "civilization"  and  co-operation  or  partnership  are  vir- 
tually interchangeable  concepts.  Any  segment  of  the  social 
process  must  be  classed  as,  on  the  whole,  barbaric  in  which 
there  is  an  excess  of  exclusive  enjoyment,  and  monopolized 
opportunity,  and  exploitation  of  persons  by  persons.  The 
social  process  becomes  civilized  when  there  is  an  excess  of 
diffused  enjoyment,  and  distributed  opix>rtunity,  and  mutually 
beneficial  reciprocity  between  person  and  person. 

These  are  not  mere  phrases.  They  are  rather  indexes  of 
the  essentials  in  the  social  process  within  which  our  everyday 
problems  are  set.  Knowledge  of  the  socializing  phase  of  the 
social  process  must  virtually  develop  by  inductive  construc- 
tion upon  these  lines. 

The  interest  of  all  men  in  the  benefits  of  culture  soon 
forms  everywhere  the  State;  i.  e.,  the  repository  of  power  to 
control,'*  We  have  dealt  with  the  State  in  the  character  of  a 
modifier  of  struggle,  as  a  sort  of  referee  in  the  prize  ring. 
We  have  now  to  observe  the  positive  office  of  the  State  in  the 
civilizing-  function.  Through  the  State  the  implications  of 
civilization  are  gradually  realized. 

-  The  elementary  function  of  the  State  as  a  factor  in  civiliza- 
tion may  be  described  as  that  of  reducing  arbitrary  inequalities 
between  persons,  in  opportunity,  influence,  and  wealth,  to  an 
inequality  corresponding  with  their  indicated  fitness  to  bear 
a  part  in  the  social  process.  - 

This,  to  be  sure,  is  a  formula  to  which  nothing  corresponds 
very  early  in  social  experience.  We  could  hardly  point  to 
exhibitions  of  this  function  of  the  State  until  a  comparatively 
advanced  stage  of  society.  We  may,  however,  with  advan- 
tage anticipate  to  this  extent,  in  order  to  be  prepared  to  detect 
the  earliest  signs  of  the  civilizing  activities.  As  in  the  case  of 
the  former  aspect  of  the  social  process,  so  in  the  case  of  this 
second  aspect,  which  we  refer  to  as  "  the  content  of  the  social 
process,"  or  "civilization,"  we  have  to  deal  with  it  first  as  a 

*  In  emphasizing  this  aspect  of  the  State,  we  do  not  abandon  our  distinc- 
tion between  "  State  "  and  government.     Cf.  pp.  226,  244,  292. 


348  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

purely  formal  notion.  The  implications  of  this  formal  defini- 
tion will  be  noticed  presently,  but  at  first  we  may  say  that  the 
substance  of  what  is  coming  to  pass  in  and  through  the  social 
process  is  the  equilibration  of  persons.  The  equality  that  we 
have  in  mind,  however,  is  not  a  quotient  obtained  by  dividing 
the  aggregate  of  opportunity  by  the  population  of  the  State. 
It  is  not  the  vulgar,  "  One  man  is  as  good  as  another,"  or, 
''  One  man  has  the  same  rights  as  another."  The  equality 
which  comports  with  civilization,  the  equality  which  is  fore- 
shadowed in  the  personal  endowments  of  people  and  in  the 
workings  of  the  social  process  thus  far,  we  have  called,  for 
want  of  a  better  name,  functional  equality.  - 

We  may  well  stop  to  inquire  whether  this  is  an  idea  that 
can  ever  have  a  meaning  for  the  multitude.  If  our  sociology 
turns  out  to  be  real  knowledge,  not  the  temporary  aberration 
of  a  few  pedants,  it  must  have  a  message  that  can  be  trans- 
lated from  technical  academic  phraseology  into  the  thoughts 
and  words  of  common  life. 

In  the  present  case  the  proposition  may  be  restated  as  fol- 
lows:  -The  social  interest  demands  that  every  person  shall  use 
the  talent  which  he  has,  for  the  union  of  the  individual  talents 
is  the  social  talent.  The  social  interest  demands  that  the  man 
who  can  till  a  field,  or  work  a  forge,  or  build  a  machine,  or 
organize  a  crew  of  laborers,  or  increase  knowledge,  or  inter- 
pret law,  or  lead  an  army,  or  do  anything  that  can  be  turned 
to  the  service  of  the  many  —  that  each  such  man  shall  be  equal 
with  every  other  man  in  freedom  to  employ  that  talent  under 
favorable  conditions,  and  to  get  the  appropriate  return  for  his 
activity."  It  does  not  mean  that  the  man  whci  might  be  a  good 
carpenter,  but  would  rather  be  secretary  of  the  treasury, 
should  be  regarded  as  having  an  equal  claim  to  the  office  with 
the  man  of  financial  experience  and  ability.  It  does  not  mean 
that  people  with  one  talent  shall  be  rated  artificially  as  equal 
to  people  with  five  talents.  It  means  that  the -one-talent  man 
shall  have  the  same  liberty  to  develop  and  use  and  enjoy  his 
one  talent,  within  the  limits  of  the  general  welfare,  that  the 
hundred-talent  man  has  to  exercise  his  hundred  talents.- 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  349- 

•  In  other  words,  "civilization  "  involves  approach  to  a  situa- 
tion in  which  each  person  shall  be  a  person,  not  a  commodity 
for  other  persons;  in  which  also  each  person  shall  be  equally 
free  with  every  other  person  to  develop  the  type  of  personality 
latent  in  his  natural  endowment,  not  the  sort  of  personality 
to  which  he  would  be  limited  by  arbitrary  division  of  oppor- 
tunity. 

At  every  stage  of  the  social  process  which  is  not  on  the 
whole  barbaric,  progress  depends  on  adoption  by  the  State  of 
provisional  scales  of  valuation.  That  is,  there  has  to  be  social 
adjustment  of  the  appraisals  which  individuals  place  on  them- 
selves. In  more  familiar  terms,  restrictions  have  to  be  placed 
by  the  State  upon  the  freedom  of  individuals  to  pursue  their 
own  interests  regardless  of  others.  Progress  in  civilization  is 
thus,  in  one  aspect,  the  substitution  of  standards  approved  by 
the  State  for  standards  set  by  the  self-esteem  of  individuals  for 
fixing  personal  values. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  social  limitations  upon  freedom 
of  the  individual  to  impose  his  own  estimate  of  himself  upon 
others  must  at  first  be  very  rude.  Such,  for  instance,  are  varia- 
tions of  the  institution  of  caste;  that  is,  assignment  of  oppor- 
tunity on  the  basis  of  the  presumption,  '*  once  a  low-caste  man 
in  station,  always  a  low-caste  man  in  talent."  With  such  rough 
means  of  fixing  the  value  of  persons,  it  is  foreordained  that 
from  the  peasant  class,  for  instance,  can  come  only  peasants  — 
no  soldier,  no  scholar,  no  statesman.  Even  this  untenable 
device  marks  a  stage  in  the  evolution  of  effort  to  insure  the 
functional  equality  which  the  social  process  tends  to  realize. 
A  prime  factor  in  the  content  of  the  social  process  is  accord- 
ingly the  progressive  substitution  of  more  for  less  objective 
standards  of  measure  for  personal  values. 

The  observation  just  recorded  is  crucial  for  sociology.  It 
marks  the  parting  of  the  ways  between  science  of  the  mechan- 
ism of  the  social  process,  and  science  of  the  human  transforma- 
tions which  are  going  forward  in  and  through  the  social 
process.    The  sort  of  analysis  in  which  we  have  been  engaged 


3SO  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

thus  far  has  necessarily  dealt  chiefly  with  the  externalities  of 
the  social  process  —  its  form,  its  ways  and  means,  its  methods 
—  with  only  secondary  reference  to  the  substance  by  considera- 
tion of  which  the  meaning  and  worth  of  these  externalities 
must  finally  be  ascertained.  When  we  turn  our  attention  to 
the  content  of  the  social  process,  we  completely  reverse  the 
previous  order,  and  we  encounter  the  necessity  of  analyzing 
the  social  process  by  means  of  quite  different  tests.  Hence- 
forward our  chief  concern  is  not  as  to  how  the  social  process 
goes  on,  but  as  to  what  goes  on.  The  content  of  the  social 
process  being,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  evolution  of  persons,  not 
the  evolution  of  culture,  from  the  moment  that  this  reality 
of  the  process  begins  to  be  visible  our  chief  concern  is  no  longer 
with  the  technique  of  the  process,  but  with  the  resultants  of 
the  process,  as  they  appear  in  moral  achievement. 

In  other  words,  the  very  conception  of  a  "  content "  of  the 
social  process  to  be  discovered  in  the  qualities  and  relations  of 
persons,  considered  as  the  ultimate  terms  rather  than  as  fac- 
tors in  an  ultimate  cultural  process,  implies  some  normative 
judgment  about  the  essentials  of  personality.  That  is,  if  devel- 
opment of  technique  of  any  sort  is  the  center  of  attention,  all 
else,  persons  included,  must  necessarily  be  rated  according 
to  its  value  for  that  development.  If,  on  the  contrary,  devel- 
opment of  persons  is  the  final  term,  all  else,  culture  included, 
must  be  rated  according  to  its  value  for  personal  achievement. 
The  success  or  failure  of  the  social  process  to  promote  the  pos- 
tulated requirements  of  the  persons  engaged  in  the  process  is 
now  the  ultimate  test  of  the  process. 

It  is  quite  true  that,  as  a  matter  of  abstract  logic,  this 
situation  presents  a  clear  case  of  the  vicious  circle.  We  judge 
the  objective  social  process  by  means  of  a  conception  of  the 
implications  of  personality.  But  that  very  conception  can  be 
derived  only  from  the  social  process  itself,  and  is  constantly 
answerable  to  the  social  process  for  its  validity.  ^  We  get  our 
data  for  conceptions  of  personality  from  experience  with  the 
social  process,  and  we  get  our  data  for  conccjitions  of  the 
social  process  by  our  experience  with  personality. 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  351 

This  dilemma,  however,  is  merely  a  specific  case  of  the  uni- 
versal epistemological  situation.  In  the  first  place,  everything 
that  we  call  knowledge  is  hypothecated  upon  the  strength  of 
some  antecedent  assumption.  In  the  second  place,  at  a  given 
stage  of  our  thinking,  we  may  correct  our  conception  either 
of  the  social  process  or  of  human  personality  by  new  insight 
into  the  other  term,  but  in  the  last  resort 'it  is  psychologically 
impossible  for  us  to  give  values  to  experience  without  assum- 
ing personality  as  the  ultimate  available  standard  of  value.  ■> 
We  necessarily  pass  our  final  judgments  about  the  meaning  of 
human  experience  by  reference  to  its  effects,  primarily  upon 
the  individuals  immediately  concerned,  but  ultimately  upon 
the  fortunes  of  all  subsequent  persons.^ 

Reasoning  about  the  social  process  is  subject,  then,  to  the 
same  limitations  that  afifect  all  other  science.  We  are  obliged 
to  fall  back  upon  a  major  premise  which  is  an  assumption  of 
the  relativity  of  values;  and  the  worth  of  our  conclusions 
depends  upon  the  validity  of  this  assumption. 

Returning  to  our  main  proposition,  the  social  process  in 
its  civilizing  phase  has  contained  two  correlative  develop- 
ments, the  one  objective,  the  other  subjective.  On  the  one 
hand,  along  with  the  universal  struggle  between  persons,  there 
has  been  the  movement  already  referred  to,  viz.,  a  tendency 
toward  adjustment  of  the  relations  of  persons  in  accordance 
with  their  essential  values;  on  the  other  hand  there  has  been 
progressive  formation  of  judgments  about  human  values,  and 
criticism  of  the  social  process  in  the  light  of  these  judgments. 
It  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  our  present  argument  to 
inquire  into  the  measure  of  influence  which  the  latter  factor 
has  exerted  upon  the  former.*'  Enough  for  our  present  pur- 
pose that  social  relations  have  exhibited  this  equalizing  tend- 

*  So  much  at  least  may  be  reckoned  as  beyond  dispute  since  Kant's 
Kritik  der  reinen  tind  der  praklischen   Vernunft. 

'  The  point  in  our  scheme  of  analysis  at  which  this  question  would  most 
properly  be  considered  is  indicated  by  title  30  in  Ratzenhofer's  schedule, 
above,  p.  326.  The  facts,  when  ascertained,  would  of  course  be  important  data 
for  social  psychology. 


352  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

ency,  and  that  theories  based  upon  valuations  of  social  rela- 
tions have  stood  in  judgment  over  against  these  objective  tend- 
encies. Thought  about  the  social  process  necessarily  assumes . 
one  of  these  valuations  of  the  persons  and  the  institutions 
concerned.  To  sustain  or  to  impeach  the  valuation,  recourse 
must  be  had  to  more  knowledge  of  the  social  process  itself. 

It  should  be  perfectly  clear  that  any  description  of  civiliza- 
tion presupposes  one  of  the  valuations  of  the  social  process  to 
which  we  have  just  referred.  We  cannot  analyze  a  process 
in  which  the  various  material  and  moral  factors  are  functions 
of  each  other,  without  passing  judgment  as  to  their  relative 
worth,  and  as  to  the  fitness  of  this  or  that  conduct  of  those 
elements  of  the  process  which  can  be  controlled.  With  dis- 
tinct recognition  that  these  judgments  are  subject  to  correction 
by  the  social  process  itself,  our  discussion  proceeds. 

The  argument  recurs  to  the  proposition :  "  A  prime  fac- 
tor in  the  content  of  the  social  process  is  accordingly  the  pro- 
gressive substitution  of  more  for  less  objective  standards  of 
measure  for  social  values."^  We  have  remarked  that,  at 
every  step  in  this  process,  restrictions  more  or  less  arbitrary 
have  to  be  enforced  by  society  upon  the  individual.  Of  what 
sort,  and  what  in  detail,  the  restrictions  must  be,  will  depend 
in  general  upon  circumstances  which  vary  from  age  to  age 
and  from  people  to  people. 

-The  rhythm  —  or,  if  we  prefer,  the  "dialectic" — of  civi- 
lization thus  indicates,  first,  equalization;  second,  restriction; 
and  we  must  schedule,  next,  the  conditions  which  permit  the 
necessary  restrictions.  - . 

The  freedom,  or  equalization,  which  is  implied  or  embry- 
onic in  human  association  is,  in  a  word,  "a  condition  which 
excludes  arbitrariness  on  the  part  of  some  individuals  toward 
others." 

Our  problem  is  to  make  out  the  conditions  that  promote 
this  result. 

^'We  may  name,  first,  a  certain  amount  of  poivcr  on  the 

*  Above,  p.  349. 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  353  , 

part  of  the  classes  most  in  danger  of  falling  into  relative 
unfreedom  and  inequality,  or  conscious  of  desire  to  move  for- 
ward into  relative  freedom  and  equality.  Looked  at  from 
another  direction,  this  factor  involves  physical  ability  to 
threaten  the  monopoly  of  the  persons  who  have  more  satis- 
faction than  is  supposed  to  be  their  due.  This  item  provides 
for  the  struggle  factor  in  the  case. 

We  name,  second,  a  certain  force  of  moral  impulse,  acting 
within  the  persons  concerned,  as  a  power  of  self-restraint.  It 
is  intuitive  feeling  in  accord  with  the  principle  already  referred 
to  in  the  aphorism  of  Phillips  Brooks:  ''No  man  has  a  right 
to  all  of  his  rights."  ^ 

In  short,  a  civilizing  condition  in  the  State  involves  not 
merely  ability  on  the  part  of  A  to  fight  B  into  respect  for  A's 
rights,  but  it  involves  in  the  feelings  of  both  A  and  B  a  sense 
that  there  is  a  line  at  which  each,  in  justice  to  himself  as  well 
as  to  the  other,  must  restrain  himself  in  asserting  his  own 
rights.  In  other  words,'  there  must  be  not  merely  talent  in 
the  individuals,  and  equality  of  freedom  to  use  the  talent,  and 
social  restraints  to  guard  that  equality ;  but  there  must  also  be 
self-restraint  to  reinforce  the  social  restraints  ;<■  i.  e.,  self- 
renunciation,  of  some  sort  and  degree,  is  part  of  the  moral 
substance  out  of  which  civilization  is  made.  Progress  in 
civilization  is  partly  the  enforced  tribute  of  defeated  selfish- 
ness to  victorious  selfishness.  It  is  also  in  part  the  willing  con- 
cession of  individual  or  group  loyalty  to  the  social  interest. 

A  conscious  civilizing  program  calls,  therefore,  for  ability 
to  detect  the  items  of  importunate  social  interest,  and  to  con- 
form individual  claims  to  these  social  demands. 

There  is,  however,  always  an  appeal,  on  the  part  of  those 
who  feel  a  need  that  others  deny,  to  the  last  resort,  viz.,  the 
sheer  power  of  the  socially  oppressed. 

jxWe  remark,  third,  the  moral  impulse  that  produces  civiliz- 
ing results  must  be  not  merely  self-restraint  and  self-denial  in 

°  Above,  p.  240. 


354  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  interest  of  present  peace,  equality,  and  liberty,  but,  still 
further,  sacrifice  for  the  future  of  humanity.^ 

If  we  analyze  the  implications  of  this  third  condition,  we 
find  that  it  points  toward  an  ultimate  content  of  civilization 
which  we  may  schedule  as,"  fourth,  establishment  of  such  secur- 
ity of  material  interests  that  all  men  will  have  a  standing 
ground  for  further  effort  after  the  higher  goods. 

This  is,  on  the  one  hand,  a  task  that  society  has 
hardly  begun;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  condition  were 
fully  satisfied  it  would  be  but  the  ground  course  in  the  whole 
structure  of  civilization.  The  logic  of  the  present  social  situa- 
tiottj  in  all  advanced  countries,  points  to  this  item  of  material 
security  as  the  objective  on  which  the  masses  may  best  concen- 
trate effort  till  this  elementary  condition  is  achieved.^*' 

Fifth,  it  should  go  without  saying  that  progressive  adapta- 
tion of  the  forces  of  nature,  as  disco^jered  by  science,  is  involved 
in  civilization.  That  is," civilization  must  so  control  the  culture 
upon  which  it  rests  that  the  resources  of  science  and  art  will 
be  turned  to  the  benefit  of  the  many  as  well  as  of  the  few.^^ 

This  proposition  applies  not  merely  to  the  physical  sciences, 
but  to  all  sciences  and  their  application  in  technique.  The 
most  pertinent  illustration  today  is  that  of  ''trusts" — using 
the  term  in  its  large  sense,  as  concentration  of  capital  under 
one  management.  On  the  one  hand,  as  a  pure  culture  devel- 
opment, the  knowledge  we  have  gained  of  the  possibilities  of 
concentrated  management  of  capital  may  prove  to  be  the  most 
important  technical  discovery  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It 
economizes   technical   resources   in   astounding  measure. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  very  concentration  threatens  civi- 
lization.    It  tempts  the  men  who  control  technical  resources 

•Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd  has  done  Rood  service  in  emphasizing  this  factor; 
cf.  Western  Civilization.  In  the  substance  of  the  arRument,  however,  Ratzen- 
hofer  anticipated  him. 

"  Vide  "  Meaning  of  the  Social  Movement,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 
Vol.  Ill,  No.  3- 

"  This  is  virtually  the  central  thesis  of  Ward's  Dynamic  Sociology. 


THE  CONTENT  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  355 

unduly  to  monopolize  the  results  of  their  power.  •  The  trust 
problem,  therefore,  not  economically  or  culturally,  but  socially 
considered,  is  how  to  save  the  technical  advantages  of  organ- 
ization, and  at  the  same  time  to  seize  the  social  advantage  of 
equitably  distributing  the  results.  ^ 

In  other  words,  we  might  act  obstructively  with  respect  to 
civilization  in  two  ways :  first,  by  refusing  to  adopt  science 
into  our  culture;  for  instance,  by  a  "  smash-the-trusts " 
policy ;  second,  by  failing  to  assimilate  the  trusts  in  the  interest 
of  the  whole ;  i,  e.,  by  surrendering  both  industrial  and  politi- 
cal control. 

Sixth,  civilization  involves,  finally,  progressive  develop- 
ment of  individual  and  social  wants.  "  The  talent  for  misery 
is  the  fulcrum  of  progress." 

Thus  far,  the  present  chapter  has  followed  the  spirit  rather 
than  the  letter  of  Ratzenhofer's  analysis.  In  conclusion,  we 
append  his  own  summary  of  the  items  essential  to  a  civilizing 
program : 

1.  The  restriction  of  absolute  hostility,  through  shifting  of  the  social 
struggle  into  peaceful  transformation  of  the  law,  through  conventions 
(political  peace). 

2.  Establishment  of  the  equal  right  of  all  men  to  compete  peacefully, 
with  their  full  natural  capabilities,  for  influence  and  property  (legal 
equality). 

3.  Assurance  of  individual  freedom,  so  far  as  consistent  with  social 
necessity  (statutory  freedom). 

4.  Preservation  and  increase  of  the  sources  of  production,  for  assur- 
ance of  the  future  of  men  (conserving  and  developing  economy). 

These  four  immediate  purposes  come  to  be  definite  aims  of  advancing 
peoples,  at  some  stage  of  their  progress.  These  aims  are  attainable,  how- 
ever, only  when  the  resources  of  culture  are  made  tributary  to  them.  These 
cultural  applications  must  consequently  take  rank  as  mediate  aims  in  a 
civilizing  policy.     In  this  class  we  schedule: 

5.  Investigation  of  nature  and  its  laws    (free  science). 

6.  Ennobled  conception  of  nature  and  its  form   (free  art). 

7.  Development  of  custom  and  usage  in  accordance  with  nature 
(natural  as  opposed  to  arbitrary  moralization), 

8.  Serious  conception  of  the  secrets  of  nature,  and  freedom  from  com- 
pulsion in  reaching  opinions  about  its  essential  content  (free  religion). 


356  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

9.  Closest  possible  approximation  to  completion  by  each  individual  of 
the  period  of  life  appropriate  to  the  race   (free  hygiene). 

10.  Promotion  and  control  of  the  sense  of  right  and  of  justice,  of  law 
and  obligation   (free  ethics). 

"  All  results  of  civic  policies  which  promote  these  purposes  make  for 
civilization,  because  their  total  effect  is  civilization."  " 

"  Wesen  und  Zweck,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  25.  The  above  scheme  should  be  com- 
pared with  the  other  schedule,  p.  216.  The  two  schedules  are  consistent 
with  each  other,  but  they  represent  views  of  the  social  process  from 
slightly  different  lines  of  approach. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 
THE  TRANSITION   FROM   STRUGGLE  TO   CO-OPERATION 

For  analytical  purposes  the  two  chief  phases  of  the  social 
process  have  to  be  treated  as  though  they  had  strictly  defined 
separate  existence.  In  fact,  every  phase  of  the  social  process, 
principal  or  subordinate,  has  intimate  relations  of  cause  or 
effect,  or  both,  with  every  other  phase.  We  noticed  at  the 
outset  of  this  analysis^  that  ^struggle  and  co-operation  are 
correlates  in  every  situation.^  From  certain  points  of  view,  it 
is  possible  to  maintain  that  struggle  and  co-operation  are 
merely  differences  of  degree,  not  of  kind.  When  we  have 
reference  to  the  content  of  the  process  first,  and  to  its  methods 
second,  there  is  difference  both  in  kind  and  degree  between 
the  phase  of  the  process  in  which  men  struggle  for  individual 
interests  regardless  of  general  interests,  and  the  phase  in  which 
they  co-operate  for  general  interests  in  partial  renunciation  of 
individual  interests.  We  are  not  arguing  that  there  is  a 
chronological  line,  before  which  the  one  phase  exists,  and 
after  which  the  other  phase  takes  its  place.  This  would  be  no 
nearer  the  truth  than  to  say  that  up  to  a  certain  date  a  railroad 
performs  an  economic  service,  but  after  that  date  its  func- 
tion is  social.  The  railroad  discharges  both  economic  and 
social  functions  all  the  time.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  road 
which  does  not  pay  economically  may  be  run  by  the  State  for 
certain  social  benefits,  but  still  the  economic  and  the  social 
services  would  be  carried  on  side  by  side  in  some  ratio. 

Our  argument  is  that. the  pursuit  of  super-individual  ends 
becomes  a  part,  and  an  increasingly  important  part,  of  the 
whole  social  process."  Moreover,  we  shall  not  have  reached 
a  secure  basis  for  psychological  interpretation  of  the  social 
process,   without   which   sociology  would   lack   the   essentials 

*  Pp.  203,  325- 

357 


358  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  science,  until  we  have  adequately  analyzed  the  co-operative 
phenomena  of  society  as  well  as  the  phenomena  of  conflict. 
In  the  present  chapter  we  call  attention  to  some  phenomena 
intermediate  between  conflict  and  co-operation. 

I.       THE   FUNCTION   OF   LAW    IN    CIVILIZATION^ 

In  the  last  chapter  we  described  civilization  as  a  process 
of  conforming  human  associations  to  new  ethical  standards, 
or  a  process  of  rearranging  association  so  that  it  conforms  to 
a  more  intensive  ethical  principle.  That  is,  civilization  is  a 
process  in  which  each  of  the  units  associating  comes  to  have 
conscious  or  unconscious  regard  for  more  of  the  ways  in 
which  every  other  individual  is  affected  by  the  association. 
It  is  a  process  the  undetected  logic  of  which  is:  "Act  for 
reasons,  and  akuays  for  more  reasons,  and  in  proportion  as  the 
reasons  establish  rank  and  precedence  among  themselves  as 
reasons,  until  action  is  finally  in  harmony  with  all  the  reasons, 
correlated  according  to  their  intrinsic  values." 

Whether  individuals  enter  into  the  spirit  of  this  logic  or 
not,  it  is  the  school  curriculum  of  humanity,  and  every  stage 
in  civilization  finds  humanity  a  step  beyond  the  earliest  stage 
in  conforming  to  this  logic. 

Now,  what  has  law  to  do  with  this  process  ?  We  spoke  of 
law  above  as  restraint.  From  our  present  outlook,  \  law  is 
rather  record,  registration,  proclamation  of  the  secured  logical 
result.  V  While  law  is  primarily  and  immediately  restraint  of 
the  individual,  it  is  essentially  a  rationalizing  of  the  association.- 
It  is  thus  an  induction  of  all  the  individuals  into  larger  liberty. 
It  induces  them  to  act  together  in  a  way  that  widens  the  scope 
and  enriches  the  content  of  life  for  each. 

For  instance,  the  logic  of  association  discovers  the  unrea- 
son, the  uneconomy,  of  murder;  and  consequently  the  law, 
speaking  for  social  reasons  and  social  utility,  says :  "  Thou 
shalt  not  kill."  The  logic  of  association  discovers  that  theft 
is  social  fallacy;    and  consequently  thq  law  decrees:     "Thou 

'  IVescn  und  Zivcck,  sec.  63. 


THE  TRANSITION  FROM  STRUGGLE  TO  CO-OPERATION  359  * 

shalt  not  steal."  Social  logic  discovers  that  falsehood  is  social 
insanity;  and  after  a  while  the  law  registers  the  sane  prin- 
ciple :  "  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neigh- 
bor." 

Thus  the  argument  goes  on,  till  social  logic  has  not  only 
answered  the  question:  "Who  is  my  neighbor?"  It  has  not 
only  learned  that  the  boundaries  of  humanity  are  one  neigh- 
borhood, but  law  enacts  the  discovery  into  display  of  growing 
implications  of  neighborliness. ,  Law  is  the  conviction  of  the 
general  mind,  turned  into  a  rule  for  the  individual  will,  in 
case  the  latter  lags  behind  the  general  mind  in  its  choices.  • ' 

In  this  fact,  and  in  this  way  of  statement,  we  have  a  pointer 
about  the  question :  What  social  conclusions  should  have  the 
force  of  law?  In  general,  the  question  is  settled  by  deciding 
what  are  social  conclusions.  That  which  is  true  is  presumably 
expedient.  .Whatever  has  demonstrated  itself,  in  the  logic  of 
association,  as  true,  is  properly  expressed  by  society  in  the 
imperative  mood,  to  command  the  action  of  individuals."  In 
this  sense,  law  is  the  social  schoolmaster.  Like  other  pedagogy, 
law  may  be  far  behind  the  skirmish  line  of  social  discovery, 
but  it  is  a  force  of  occupation  whose  business  it  is  to  see  that 
the  flag  of  the  conqueror  is  never  lowered  upon  territory  once 
annexed  by  social  conviction. 

II.    BY-PRODUCTS  OF  STRUGGLE  ADDED  TO  CIVILIZATION^ 

Pure  sociology  may  be  said  to  deal  with  two  classes  of 
phenomena :  £rst,  the  transformation  of  individual  facts  into 
social  facts;  second,  the  transformation  of  social  facts  into 
individual  facts. 

The  subject  of  both  these  propositions  is  a  relative  term; 
i.  e.,  an  individual  fact,  pure  and  simple,  would  be  a  physical 
or  a  mental  event  which  did  not  spread  its  influence  abroad  in 
any  degree.  On  the  other  hand,  a  social  fact  is  essentially  an 
occurrence  which  involves  reaction  between  two  or  more  peo- 
ple.  Yet,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  fact  so 

*  Wesen  und  Zweck,  sec.  64. 


36o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

individual  that  it  may  not  have  the  potency  at  least,  and  per- 
haps the  promise,  of  sooner  or  later  reacting  upon  other  indi- 
viduals. 

I  have  a  cold,  for  instance.  It  may  not  be  noticed  by  any- 
body else.  It  may  not  make  me  cough,  or  speak  with  a  hoarse 
voice;  but  it  unnerves  me  physically,  it  beclouds  me  mentally, 
and  it  reduces  me  morally.  My  unconscious  and  undetected 
reaction  upon  others  may  affect  their  whole  personal  equation. 
It  would  not  be  profitable,  however,  for  working  purposes,  to 
classify  my  cold  as  a  social  fact.  By  so  doing  we  should  vir- 
tually efface  the  distinction  between  social  and  individual 
facts. 

We  may  go  a  step  farther.  Suppose  I  not  only  turn  to  the 
left  instead  of  the  right,  but  suppose  I  push  another  pedestrian 
to  the  side  of  the  walk  which  I  should  have  taken.  Here  is  a 
visible  physical  reaction  between  persons.  It  is  also  a  sign  of 
a  mental  and  moral  reaction.  Shall  we  classify  the  incident 
for  that  reason  as  social?  It  certainly  contains  the  elements 
of  a  social  situation;  and  if  we  were  speaking  with  absolute 
exactness,  it  would  be  necessary  to  admit  it  within  the  cate- 
gory "social."  The  social  element  would  nevertheless  not  be 
present  in  sufficient  proportions  to  display  marks  of  distinction 
between  the  concepts  "individual"  and  "social."  For  that 
reason  such  classification  would  fail  to  make  the  incident 
instructive.  Events  of  which  these  are  examples  are  to  be 
rated,  then,  as  in  effect  individual  rather  than  social. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  prevalence  of  colds  is  one  of  the 
factors  that  make  men  expectorate  in  public  places.  Presently 
laws  begin  to  be  passed  and  enforced,  penalizing  such  action. 
Again,  passengers  on.  foot  and  in  vehicles  meet  so  often  that 
a  law  of  the  road  develops.  »  The  anti-spitting  ordinance,  or 
the  law  of  the  road,  is  a  social  affair  of  a  higher  potency  than 
the  fortuitous  reaction  of  individuals.  \ 

Just  where  shall  we  find  the  line  of  distinction  ?  Appar- 
ently it  is  here :  That  occurrence  must  be  regarded  as  indi- 
vidual, i.  e.,  as  socially  negligible,  which  is  not  seen  to  have 


THE  TRANSITION  FROM  STRUGGLE  TO  CO-OPERATION  361 

considerable  effect  upon  types  of  association ;  which  is  merely 
an  incident  neither  producing  nor  produced  by  typical  group 
conditions,  but  is  occasioned  by  variations  of  impulse  peculiar 
to  the  individuals.  That  occurrence  must  be  treated  as  social 
which  appears  to  have  a  tendency  to  pass  into  a  form  or  qual- 
ity of  association,  or  to  break  up  established  types  of  associa- 
tion, or  to  express  a  certain  resultant  of  associate  personal 
influence. 

With  this  understanding-  of  terms,  we  may  advance  upon 
our  analysis  of  the  content  of  the  social  process. 

Struggle  is  primarily  individual,  in  the  sense  just  indi- 
cated. It  is  not  of  and  by  and  for  the  group,  in  the  largest 
sense ;  or,  at  least,  not  the  largest  group  within  the  horizon 
of  the  struggle. 

When  king,  barons,  and  commons  fight,  the  royal  forces 
are  a  group  to  be  sure,  the  barons  are  another  group,  and  the 
commons  are  another.  Between  them,  however,  England,  as 
a  social  whole,  for  the  time  virtually  ceases  to  exist.  -  Struggle 
dismembers  the  group  that  sustains  the  struggle.^  It  is  resolved 
into  lesser  groups,  each  asserting  an  interest  that  is  individual 
relatively  to  the  group  within  which  they  collide.  So  of  the 
trade,  within  which  laborer  and  employer  fight  each  other. 
So  of  the  community,  in  which  farmer  and  manufacturer  are 
at  odds. 

Struggle  is  primarily  centrifugal,  which  is  virtually 
synonymous  with  individualistic,  as  we  are  now  using  the 
term.  Civilization,  considered  as  the  accumulating  product 
of  the  social  process,  is  centripetal;  i.  e.,  it  integrates  inter- 
ests, and  the  groups  that  represent  them,  so  that  they  settle 
themselves  into  types  of  association. 

The  fact  which  we  have  now  to  emphasize  is  that,  in  spite 
of  this  antithesis  in  the  direction  of  social  forces,  v  struggle 
itself  deposits  elements  of  civilization."*  \That  is,  selfish,  indi- 

*  Simmel,  "  Sociology  of  Conflict,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  IX, 
p.  490.  Cf.  notice  of  Durkheim,  De  la  division  du  travail  social,  2d  ed.,  ibid., 
Vol.  VII,  p.  566. 


362  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

vidualistic  impulses  perform  a  function  in  the  interest  of  civi- 
lization, partly  in  spite  of  themselves,  and  partly  through  the 
merging  of  selfish  impulses  into  socializing  impulses. 

The  generalization  may  be  expressed  in  concrete  illustra- 
tions : 

The  British  East  India  Company  and  the  Hudson  Bay 
Company  were  selfish  enterprises  of  the  frankest  sort.  They 
were  organized  struggles  of  alien  cupidity  against  native  weak- 
ness and  ignorance.  Without  any  considerable  feeling  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  exploited  populations,  or  desire  to  do  them  good, 
the  persons  who  invaded  either  territory  actually  did  leave  in 
their  track  certain  civilizing  results. 

The  like  is  true  of  men  who  in  more  recent  years  indirectly 
assaulted  public  morality,  and  pillaged  public  property,  in  the 
struggle  to  enrich  themselves  by  building  railroads.  The  illus- 
tration does  not  refer  to  railroad-builders  as  a  class,  but  to 
notorious  special  cases.  In  these  instances,  their  own  private 
emolument  was  virtually  the  sole  interest  which  the  operators 
cared  to  satisfy.  Incidentally,  however,  they  forged  bonds  of 
unity  between  parts  of  the  society  which  they  exploited. 

There  is  still  another  form  of  the  same  principle,  working 
in  a  more  disinterested  guise.  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  or 
Louis  Kossuth,  or  Savonarola,  champions  a  cause.  It  makes 
no  difiference  whether  a  hidden  motive  is  involved  or  not. 
The  cause  is  its  own  justification.  The  individual  struggles 
for  the  cause,  incidentally  satisfying  his  own  interest  in  means 
of  subsistence,  in  social  prestige,  in  vindicating  his  own  theo- 
ries, or  whatever.  In  either  case  a  social  adjustment  may  be 
brought  about.  The  same  thing  occurs  in  the  case  of  groups. 
The  conflict  of  the  American  colonies  among  themselves,  after 
the  War  of  Independence,  was  in  form  and  motive  individual- 
istic ;  it  was  selfish ;  it  was  separatistic.  It  nevertheless 
visualized  the  evils  of  local  individualism  and  selfishness  and 
separatism.  It  argued  the  cause  of  community  and  co- 
operation and  organization.  It  produced  disgust  with  political 
cross-purposes.     It  thus  prepared  the  way  for  union. 


THE  TRANSITION  FROM  STRUGGLE  TO  CO-OPERATION  363 

In  short,*- struggle,  in  spite  of  itself,  reacts  with  social 
necessity  in  such  a  way  that  the  resultant  is  a  certain  deposit 
of  serviceable  social  arrangement.  '  For  further  illustration, 
we  may  suggest :  different  forms  of  modus  vivendi,  as  under- 
standings between  nations,  either  preventing  or  suspending 
struggle ;  treaties,  embodying  the  results  of  struggle ;  articles 
of  civilized  warfare,  codifying  experience  so  as  to  insure 
against  extremest  barbarity  in  future  struggle;  legislative  or 
constitutional  provisions  —  for  instance,  each  of  the  fifteen 
amendments  to  the  American  constitution  —  which  may  be 
regarded  as  the  positive  output  of  previous  party  struggle; 
trade  agreements  ending  strikes,  lockouts,  etc. ;  and  many 
similar  adjustments. 

In  a  word, 'Struggle  creates  new  conditions  that  become  the 
line  within  which  peaceful  co-operation  may  proceed. 

III.      THE  DIRECT   EFFECTS   OF   THE   CIVILIZING   FORCES^ 

At  present  we  may  use  the  terms  "  socialization "  and 
"  civilization  "  interchangeably.  Each  is  a  phase  of  the  other. 
We  have  just  seen  how  struggle  —  i.  e.,  the  specialization  of 
interests  —  unwittingly  pays  tribute,  and  becomes  vassal  to, 
socialization.  It  turns  the  interests  which  are  antagonists  of 
each  other  into  a  common  social  stock,  administered  by  a  group 
composed  of  all  the  previously  conflicting  groups.  In  the  last 
analysis,  this  element  is  in  some  measure  present  in  every 
socializing  movement. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  find  in  progressing  civilization  the 
action  of  forces  which  their  agents  do  not  regard  as  selfish. 
Certain  interests,  which  are  necessarily  individual  in  their 
ultimate  units,  project  themselves  into  a  region  of  relations 
outside  the  individual  actors.  The  ends  sought  seem  to  these 
actors  to  be,  not  their  own  ends,  but  purposes  intrinsically 
worthy. 

For  example,  I  want  the  merit  system  to  be  adopted  in 
our  civil  service,  because  it  seems  to  me  the  efficient  way  of 

'  Wesen  und  Zweck,  sec.  65. 


364  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

doing  the  public  business.  This  means  at  last,  however,  that 
the  public  service  is  my  projected  self.  I  want  to  be  served 
by  the  most  effective  system  possible,  and  I  join  forces  with 
other  people  who  feel  the  same  want. 

^  The  civilizing  forces,  then,  are  generalized  individual 
forces.  ^  The  apparent  difference  between  them  and  frankly 
selfish  forces  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  terminus  upon  which 
the  latter  calculate  is  in  the  individuals  who  act,  while  in  the 
former  case  the  terminus  in  view  is  either  in  the  persons  acted 
upon,  or  in  forms  of  relationship  that  are  but  remotely  con- 
nected with  the  immediate  actors.  In  the  latter  case  the  pre- 
sumption of  disinterested  quality  in  the  action  is  easy. 

To  illustrate.  My  health  interest  stimulates  my  frankly 
selfish  desire  for  food  and  clothes  and  fuel,  because  of  the 
bodily  comfort  which  they  produce.  On  the  other  hand,  I 
say  there  is  no  selfishness  in  my  desire  that  my  neighbor,  in 
the  rear  tenement  in  the  next  block,  shall  be  housed  and 
warmed  and  fed.  I  am  mistaken,  however.  It  is  not  the 
same  interest  in  me  which  desires  my  own  and  my  neighbor's 
physical  comfort,  but  it  is  the  same  self  in  the  two  cases, 
expressing  different  interests.  So  it  is  not  one  selfish  self  that 
frankly  wants  to  make  money,  and  another  unselfish  self  that 
wants  to  give  some  of  that  money  to  charity.  The  money- 
making  and  the  charity  are  alike  projected  out  of  interests 
that  have  their  lodgment  in  the  same  actor.  Their  force  is 
derived  from  the  impulse  of  the  same  actor  to  satisfy  his  own 
interests. 

v\  The  distinction  between  a  selfish  and  an  unselfish  action 
is  not  psychological,  therefore,  but  sociological.  All  conduct 
is  primarily  of,  for,  and  by  the  self.v  If  I  risk  my  life  to  save 
a  neighbor's  child  from  drowning,  it  is  not  because  my  own 
wishes  for  the  time  being  are  suspended,  and  1  become  the 
mere  channel  of  outside  forces.  Precisely  the  contrary  is 
true.  The  action  would  show  that  I  am  less  at  ease  with 
myself  in  seeing  a  neighbor's  child  drown  than  I  am  in  expos- 
ing my  life  to  prevent  the  accident.     It  is  I  that  want  the 


THE  TRANSITION  FROM  STRUGGLE  TO  CO-OPERATION  365 

child  to  be  saved,  just  as  at  another  moment,  for  other  reasons, 
I  might  want  to  kill  another  person. 

In  the  last  analysis,  the  stimulus  of  every  act  is  an  interest 
of  the  individual  who  acts.  <  The  possibility  of  conduct  appar- 
ently tending  away  from  the  self,  or 'even  against  the  self,  is 
given  in  the  diverse  types  of  interests  that  compose  the  self.^ 

These  considerations  prepare  the  way  for  our  view  of  the 
direct  civilizing  process.  Men  first  struggle  for  what  they 
regard  as  satisfaction  of  their  own  individual  desires.  Then 
they  differentiate  ability,  in  some  form  and  measure,  to  strug- 
gle for  purposes  whose  ends  seem  to  lie  outside  of  themselves. 
Social  arrangements  —  constitutions  of  government,  laws, 
forms  of  intercourse,  group  policies  —  seem  to  be  worth  effort 
on  their  own  account.  Action  aimed  toward  such  ends  is 
directly  socializing.  The  fundamental  condition  of  such  action 
is  that  the  individuals  composing  the  group  shall  have  passed 
out  of  the  initial  stages  of  personal  development,  into  the 
stage  in  which  the  social  and  the  ethical  interests  are  attract- 
ive, i  There  must  be  in  the  individuals  a  distinct  demand  for 
social  and  ethical  satisfactions^  or  there  will  be  no  direct  effort 
for  socializing  or  civilizing  ends.  It  follows  that  no  new  era 
can  arise  in  socialization,  no  genuine  advance  of  civilization 
to  a  higher  plane  can  take  place,  until  there  has  previously 
occurred,  in  the  souls  of  the  persons  composing  the  civiliza- 
tion, either  an  extension  or  an  intensification  of  the  ethical 
interests. 

The  power  of  a  nation  to  socialize  itself  is  not  to  be  meas- 
ured by  the  excellence  of  isolated  individuals  in  the  population. 
Russia  is  not  social  in  its  temper  because  it  has  produced  a 
Tolstoi,  nor  Italy  from  having  a  Mazzini.  1  The  civilizing 
capacity  of  a  people  does  not  correspond  with  the  mental  or 
moral  attitude  of  its  best  men,  but  with  the  general  level  of 
social  impulse  in  the  majority.  I 

It  is  a  frequent  remark  that  Germany  has  profited  more 

'  Vide  Dewey,  "  Self-realization  as  a  Moral  Ideal,"  Philosophical  Review, 
Vol.  II,  p.  652  ;    also,  "  Green's  Theory  of  Moral  Motive,"  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  593. 


366  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

than  France  by  the  French  Revolution.  One  of  the  obvious 
reasons  is  that  the  spirit  of  the  French  nation  is  relatively 
individualistic,  in  spite  of  the  centralized  government  and  the 
profession  of  collectivistic  sentiments ;  while  the  German  spirit 
is  relatively  collectivistic,  in  spite  of  the  Teutonic  traditions 
of  freedom.  The  German  ideal  has  never  been  atomistic 
liberty,  but  the  freedom  of  parts  within  a  body.  There  has, 
accordingly,  been  arrest,  and  defeat,  and  confusion  of  progress 
in  France,  by  individual  fractiousness  and  perversity,  because 
there  has  been  defect  of  community  spirit.  At  the  same  time, 
there  has  been  in  Germany  comparative  readiness  to  acquiesce 
in  apparent  demands  of  civic  order,  in  spite  of  energetic  dis- 
integrating impulses.  The  German  is  the  more  social  in  his 
individuality.  The  Frenchman  is  the  more  individual  in  his 
sociability. 

Again,  as  Ratzenhofer  points  out,  we  cannot  measure  the 
socialization  of  a  people  by  the  liberal  character  of  its  political 
constitution.  On  the  contrary,  as  some  South  American 
States  show,  in  the  absence  of  an  effective  social  bond  in  the 
temper  of  the  people,  a  constitution  that  is  free  in  form  may 
be  merely  a  product  and  a  tool  of  anarchy. 

Actual  socialization  may  be  promoted,  to  be  sure,  by  exter- 
nal pressure,  as  is  doubtless  the  case  at  present  in  Mexico. 
That  socialization  may  become  intrinsic  and  secure,  it  must 
have  its  roots  in  popular  interests.  The  latter  must,  more- 
over, be  of  the  sort  that  find  genuine  satisfaction  in  community 
relations,  in  distinction  from  individual  conditions.  There 
must  be  the  spirit  of  industry,  thrift,  self-respect,  and  respect 
for  others.  There  must  be  love  of  order,  love  of  justice,  and 
pride  in  group  achievements.  There  must  be  in  the  units  talent 
for  feeling  themselves  one  with  the  whole,  and  for  experien- 
cing personal  triumph  or  defeat  with  the  gain  or  loss  of  the 
whole.  Without  this  psychical  basis  there  may  be  mechanical 
organization,  and  imitation  of  civilized  institutions,  but  no 
secure  socialization.  With  this  psychical  basis  socialization  is 
in  principle  achieved.  Its  evolution  is  merely  a  series  of 
details. 


THE  TRANSITION  FROM  STRUGGLE  TO  CO-OPERATION  367 

I  In  so  far  as  the  socializing  spirit  acts  directly,  it  is  a  con- 
scious movement,  headed  by  alert  idealists,  selecting  definite 
purposes  in  the  common  interest,  and  supported  by  the  masses, 
in  the  spirit  of  group  enthusiasm. 

IV.  RESUME  OF  THE   BEARINGS   OF  THE   ARGUMENT   UPON 
SOCIOLOGICAI-    METHOD 

Parts  IV  and  V  have  thus  been  a  free  commentary  upon  an 
epitome  of  the  program  of  descriptive  sociology  which  Wesen 
und  Zweck  der  Politik  proposes/  It  has  been  a  labor  of  love 
to  point  out  the  significance  of  Ratzenhofer's  contribution  to 
sociological  method.  Whether  much  or  little  of  his  particular 
analysis  stands  the  test  of  criticism,  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that 
the  mystical  descriptive  sociologies  of  the  pre-Comtean  period, 
and  the  symbolical  descriptive  sociologies  typified  by  Spencer 
and  Schaffle,  pass  for  the  first  time  into  securely  objective 
descriptive  method  in  the  argument  of  Ratzenhofer. 

Reduced  to  their  lowest  terms,  the  problem  and  the  method 
of  sociology,  as  this  syllabus  has  thus  far  discussed  them, 
amount  to  this :  7  The  problem  is  to  state  and  interpret,  as  a 
coherent  zvhole,  the  facts  of  human  experience.  The  method 
is  not  metaphysical  in  any  sense;  it  is  not  symbolical,  or  ana- 
logical, or  indirect,  in  any  sense;  it  is  matter-of-fact  gener- 
alization of  the  zvorkings  of  elemental  human  interests,  as 
they  manifest  themselves  in  types  of  individuals,  and  in  types 
of  association.    > 

The  operations  of  human  interests,  we  repeat,  fall  into 
two  great  classes :  first,  those  in  which  the  immediate  aim  is 
satisfaction  of  some  demand  which  the  actors  locate  in  them- 
selves; second,  those  in  which  the  immediate  aim  is  satisfac- 
tion of  some  demand  w^hich  the  actors  locate  outside  of  them- 
selves.    These  two  classes  of  activities  are   infinitely   inter- 

'  The  title-page  contains  the  clause :  Als  Theil  der  Sociologie  und  Grund- 
lage  der  Staatswissenschaften.  It  would  have  been  quite  in  accord  with  Ger- 
man usage,  and  it  would  have  precisely  defined  the  scope  of  the  work,  if  the 
alternative  title  had  been  substituted :  Entwurf  zu  ciner  beschreibenden 
Sociologie. 


368  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

laced,  so  that  we  cannot  sharply  separate  concrete  acts,  placing 
some  in  the  one  class  and  others  in  the  other.  We  can  go  only 
so  far  as  to  say  that  in  one  aspect  or  relationship,  or  in  ratio 
of  influence,  given  concrete  acts  fall  within  the  one  class  or  the 
other. 

As  a  rough  general  principle,  then,  the  former  operations 
of  interest  produce  the  phenomena  of  struggle,  the  best  direct 
product  of  which  is  "  culture,"  i.  e.,  a  body  of  technical  inven- 
tions for  accomplishing  results,  irrespective  of  conditions  gov- 
erning the  use  of  the  inventions;  the  latter  produce  the  phe- 
nomena of  co-operation,  or  civilization,  the  criterion  of  which 
is  progressive  use  of  all  culture  by  increasing  proportions  of 
the  people. 

It  thus  comes  about  that  the  descriptive  or  analytical  stage 
of  sociology  encounters  the  task  of  tracing  the  terms  in  which 
interests  present  themselves  to  individuals  and  to  groups,  and 
the  variations  under  which  efforts  to  satisfy  these  interests 
occur. 

We  have  indicated  in  some  detail  a  line  of  analysis  appro- 
priate to  the  phenomena  of  struggle  (Part  IV).  On  the  other 
hand,  we  have  hardly  gone  beyond  advertising  the  demand  for 
similar  analysis  of  the  phenomena  of  co-operation  (Part  V). 
The  reason  for  this  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  struggle  element  is 
so  notorious  that  not  everyone  will  admit  the  presence  of  any- 
thing except  struggle  in  the  social  process.  The  phenomena 
of  struggle  are  on  the  surface,  visible  to  everybody,  and  until 
very  recently  they  have  virtually  monopolized  the  attention 
of  historians  and  philosophers.  The  social  sciences,  whatever 
their  names,  have  thus  far  done  little  else  than  thresh  out  the 
data  of  human  struggle.  So  much  of  the  work  of  descriptive 
sociology  has  been  done  already  in  this  division  that  there 
should  be  little  surprise  at  the  skepticism  of  theorists  about 
the  existence  of  any  other  factor.  For  this  reason  I  have 
never  been  able  to  see  the  force  of  Professor  Giddings' 
hypothesis   "  consciousness  of   kind "   as   a   sociological   prin- 


THE  TRANSITION  FROM  STRUGGLE  TO  CO-OPERATION  369 

ciple.^  In  so  far  as  its  content  is  a  physiological  or  a  psycho- 
logical fact  —  i.  e.,  "like  response  to  like  stimulus" — it  seems 
to  me  simply  to  phrase  a  pre-sociological  datum  about  which 
there  is  no  ground  for  debate.  In  so  far  as  it  claims  to  be  a 
generalization  of  social  reactions,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  rather 
a  formula  of  what  would  or  should  be  in  a  completely  inte- 
grated human  association,  than  of  what  has  been,  thus  far, 
during  the  genesis  of  association.  Consciousness  of  differ- 
ence has  been  enormously  more  apparent  than  consciousness 
of  likeness.  Some  such  phrase  as  "  regularity  of  reaction  " 
might  stand  for  an  undoubted  fact.  Whatever  the  phrase 
"consciousness  of  kind"  implies  more  than  this  seems  to  me 
relatively  a  social  desideratum  rather  than  the  generally  deci- 
sive social  fact. 

When  we  turn  to  the  element  of  co-operation,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  have  to  overcome  the  prejudice  against  interpreting 
co-operation  proper  into  any  social  combination.  The  pre- 
sumption is  that  the  social  process  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  struggle  mitigated  by  acceptance  of  the  inevitable;  that 
what  we  name  co-operation  is  merely  stifled  struggle. 

On  the  contrary,  our  thesis  is  that, -along  with  out-and-out 
struggle  —  i.  e.,  self-assertion  of  the  extremest  type  —  and 
along  with  the  externally  socialized  self-assertion  which  recog- 
nizes the  self-interest  of  pooling  issues  w^ith  others;  a  factor 
quite  different  in  temper  develops  in  the  course  of  the  social 
process.  We  have  called  this  the  co-operative  or  civilizing 
factor.  •  The  tendency  which  it  promotes  begins  to  manifest 
itself  before  there  is  sure  evidence  of  a  conscious  purpose  to 
co-operate  and  to  civilize.  That  conscious  purpose  does  arise. 
It  gathers  definiteness  and  strength.  There  comes  to  be  a 
certain  assertion  of  purposes  that  locate  their  aim,  not  in 
the  self,  but  in  the  community  in  which  the  actor  functions. 
That  community  gradually  widens.  A  few  men  dedicate  them- 
selves to  causes  which  they  regard  as  greater  than  themselves. 

*  Vide  Principles  of  Sociology,  Elements  of  Sociology,  and  Inductive 
Sociology,  passim. 


370  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

They  speak  of  these  ends  as  "country,"  "humanity," 
"science,"  "art,"  "  Hterature,"  "reform,"  "God."  Not  all 
of  these  men,  by  any  means,  actually  reinforce  the  co-operative 
impulse  which  we  assert,  but  some  of  them  do.  There  spreads 
among  the  multitude  a  certain  contagion  of  this  collective 
spirit.  While  a  few  men  may  be  said  to  locate  the  aim  of  life 
outside  of  themselves,  many  more  men  locate  some  portion  of 
the  aim  of  their  lives  outside  of  themselves.  Whether  they 
are  aware  of  it  or  not,  this  transfer  or  division  of  interest 
becomes  an  effort  for  the  good  of  a  society  of  men  more  or  less 
beyond  the  individual  sphere,  and  at  its  highest  power  devo- 
tion to  the  good  of  all  men. 

The  operations  of  this  factor  are  much  less  easily  proved 
than  those  of  the  narrowly  selfish  factor.  It  is  seldom  so 
distinct  from  the  other  factor  that  it  may  not  be  charged  with 
wearing  the  mask  of  collective  interest,  merely  to  make  its 
real  selfishness  more  successful.  The  evidence  of  its  presence 
is  more  indirect;  or,  at  all  events,  the  presumption  is  much 
stronger  against  the  face  value  of  evidence  pointing  toward 
the  collective  interest  than  against  evidence  of  the  more  proba- 
ble selfish  interest. 

For  all  these  reasons,  any  analysis  of  social  phenomena 
as  manifestations  of  the  co-operative  purpose  would  be  chal- 
lenged at  every  step,  and  called  upon  for  proof  that  the  inter- 
pretation did  not  force  a  theory  into  the  facts.  This  syllabus 
of  a  general  argument  would  miss  its  purpose  if  it  should 
enter  into  the  detail  necessary  to  demonstrate  a  particular 
proposition,  even  though  it  were,  as  in  the  present  case,  a 
theorem  of  cardinal  importance  in  the  whole  system.  It  is  in 
point  merely  to  define  the  issue,  and  to  show  its  relation  to 
sociological  method. 

We  assert,  then,  that  a  factor  of  increasingly  conscious,  col- 
lective, co-operative,  civilizing  purpose  has  had  cumulative 
influence  in  the  social  process.  Men's  conceptions  of  their 
own  interests  have  tended  to  shape  themselves  more  and  more 
in  a  setting  of  general  interests.     Collective  purposes,  which 


THE  TRANSITION  FROM  STRUGGLE  TO  CO-OPERATION  371 

men  did  not  at  all  connect  with  their  individual  interests,  or  at 
most  only  as  an  after-thought  or  by-thought,  have  played  an 
important,  and  often  decisive,  role  in  the  drama  of  life.  Analy- 
sis of  the  social  process  in  terms  of  this  co-operative  factor  is 
quite  as  essential  as  analysis  in  terms  of  the  struggle  factor. 

In  other  words,'  the  social  process,  as  we  actually  find  it, 
is  a  product,  not  only  of  individuals'  efforts  to  attain  satisfac- 
tions contemplated  as  wholly  their  own,  but  also  to  realize 
social  conditions  regarded  as  more  or  less  external  to  them- 
selves, and  desirable  because  of  values  recognized  outside  of 
themselves.  The  reality  and  the  importance  of  this  second 
main  factor  in  the  process  have  not  received  proportionate 
attention.  Its  operation  overlays  and  informs  the  action  of 
the  struggle  factor  more  and  more  decisively  as  human  experi- 
ence matures. 

The  ambition  of  sociologists  to  interpret  the  social  process 
has  far  outrun  their  success  in  describing  the  process.  We 
have  had  interpretations  galore  that  do  not  interpret,  princi- 
pally because  they  were  lucubrated  out  of  sight  of  the  actual 
process  to  be  interpreted.  The  peculiar  merit  of  Ratzenhofer's 
work  is  that  it  presents  a  more  realistic  survey  of  the  whole 
scope  of  the  social  process  than  any  previous  system  had  con- 
tained. We  have  had  sociologies,  and  in  particular  social 
psychologies,  of  a  vacuum,  of  imaginary  societies,  and  of 
scraps  of  society.  We  have  yet  to  develop  a  sociology  that 
rests  upon  valid  induction  from  the  actual  social  process. 
Ratzenhofer  has  gone  beyond  all  his  predecessors  in  plotting 
the  whole  scope  of  the  process,  and  in  proposing  tentative  for- 
mulas of  correlation.  The  sort  of  thing  that  he  exhibits  is  the 
stuff  out  of  which  objective  sociology  must  be  made.  So  far 
as  the  co-operative  factor  in  the  social  process  is  concerned, 
the  work  of  collecting  the  material  can  as  yet  show  only 
fragmentary  results,  while  the  work  of  criticising  the  material 
is  hardly  begun. 


CHAPTER   XXVII 

THE   ACTUAL    CONFLICT    OF   INTERESTS    IN    MODERN 

SOCIETY 

With  this  subject  we  reach  the  rock  on  which  sociology 
has  thus  far  split.  All  that  has  gone  before  is  relatively  easy. 
Here  is  the  difficulty  beyond  which  sociology  has  not  been 
able  to  go.  Our  general  survey  has  brought  to  view  the  main 
features  of  the  social  process.  Even  if  this  general  view  were 
complete  in  detail,  it  would  after  all  be  a  mere  preliminary. 
Every  sociologist,  v»'hether  he  is  an  abstract  theorist  or  an 
ardent  and  restless  reformer,  has  some  sort  of  vagne  notion 
that  sociology  is  worth  while  because  it  will  somehow,  some- 
time, show  the  way  to  move  the  world.  It  might  as  well  be 
confessed  that  sociology  has  not  gone  very  far  toward  justify- 
ing this  idea.  What  we  have  done  as  yet  is  mainly  descriptive. 
That  is,  it  is  a  thinking  over  of  what  lias  been  done.  The 
desideratum  is  to  find  out  what  remains  to  be  done,  and  how 
to  do  it.  Every  system  of  sociology  has  paused  perplexed 
before  this  requisition  upon  its  wisdom. 

Now,  we  must  not  think  that  this  amounts,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  a  condemnation  of  all  the  description,  and  analysis, 
and  generalization  that  has  been  done,  and  which  must  con- 
tinue to  be  done  in  much  greater  detail ;  nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  proof  that  our  aspirations  for  human  progress  are 
Utopian  and  chimerical.  Everybody  who  allows  himself  to 
think  above  the  level  of  commonplace  mechanical  routine  has 
a  certain  amount  of  feeling,  which  he  may  never  have  dis- 
tinctly defined  to  himself,  that  there  is  sometime  coming  a 
new  revelation  of  the  meaning  of  life.  We  all  imagine  that 
some  day  a  rift  in  the  clouds  will  widen  our  horizon.  We 
look  for  some  sort  of  clarification  of  our  vision  that  will  show 
us  what  we  should  try  to  do  in  order  to  realize  tiie  largest 

372 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         2,7?^ 

values  of  life.  We  are  conscious  of  the  suspicion  that  cross- 
purposes,  and  no  distinct  purposes  at  all,  of  any  wide  scope, 
defeat  the  aims  of  our  industries,  our  government,  our  edu- 
cation, our  social  intercourse,  and  our  religion.  We  are  all 
looking  for  some  prophet  to  tell  us  how  we  have  missed  our 
bearings  and  how  to  find  them. 

Doubtless  he  will  come,  but  he  will  probably  be  the  end  of 
an  era  rather  than  its  beginning.  That  is,  he  will  be  the  man 
—  or  it  will  more  likely  be  the  whole  Zeitgeist  —  that  will 
gather  up  and  bring  into  form  the  results  of  the  kind  of  analy- 
sis of  the  social  process  which  we  are  now  carrying  on.  That 
new  vision  and  purpose  will  have  come  when  we  are  able  to  see 
the  concrete  details  of  our  peculiar  situation  in  their  real  sig- 
nificance as  incidents  in  the  general  social  process. 

We  have  made  out  that  the  gist  of  the  social  process  is  the 
struggle  of  men  to  realize  their  interests  :  the  joining  of  hands 
among  men  to  help  realize  the  eominon  interest,  and  to  defeat 
the  competing  interest ;  the  development  of  more  and  more 
complex  alliances,  as  the  interests  become  more  complicated, 
and  as  the  gaining  of  them  calls  for  more  elaborate  means. 

All  this  brings  us  to  the  very  commonplace  conclusion 
that'  the  ftmdamental  sociological  problem,  viewed  w^ith  refer- 
ence to  further  achievement  or  progress,  is  the  problem  of 
stating  the  actual  conflict  of  interests  in  present  society.  What 
is  the  actual  division  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  for 
example,  in  the  pursuit  of  ends,  and  to  what  extent  is  this 
division  necessary  antagonism  of  the  people  ,against  each 
other  ? 

The  solution  of  an  algebraic  problem  is  virtually  accom- 
plished when  the  problem  is  correctly  stated.  That  is,  the 
formula  of  the  problem  has  merely  to  be  transformed  by 
deductive  logic  into  the  formula  of  the  conclusion.  It  would 
be  too  much  to  say  that  the  same  is  true  of  the  social  prob- 
lem, but  is  is  evident  that  our  problem  cannot  be  solved  by 
any  intelligent  process  until  it  can  first  be  stated.  I  do  not 
profess  to  have  gone  beyond   the  other  scx:iologists   at   this 


374  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

point.  We  are  all  putting  the  meagerness  of  our  resources 
on  exhibition  before  this  final  demand  of  life  upon  theory. 
It  may  be  rash  to  hope  that  anything  in  this  argument  will 
go  far  toward  advancing  the  present  frontier  of  sociology. 
At  all  events,  we  can  point  out  how  important  the  problem  is, 
and  how  hard  it  is. 

We  have  defined  culture  as  the  total  technique  for  getting 
things  done.  We  have  defined  civilization  as  popularization 
or  democratization  of  the  use  of  culture.  Some  people  are 
starving  to  death,  physically,  socially,  intellectually,  aestheti- 
cally, and  religiously;  while  others  are  beglutted  with 
abundance  of  all  the  output  of  material,  social,  intellectual, 
aesthetic,  and  religious  culture.  There  are  infinite  gradations 
between  these  extremes  of  poverty  and  superabundance. 
Probably  those  men  who  think  about  it  at  all  would  agree 
that  progress  must  involve  some  sort  of  rearrangement  of  rela- 
tions between  these  extremes.  To  get  at  even  an  hypothesis 
of  rearrangement,  we  need  an  approximately  correct  state- 
ment of  the  existing  arrangement.  Society  has  worked  out  a 
culture.  The  people  who  make  up  the  living  generation  are 
so  divided^  either  in  their  interests  or  in  the  pursuit  of  their 
interests,  that  they  believe  they  are  in  an  anomalous  situation 
in  the  enjoyment  of  that  culture.  The  frontier  problem  of 
practical  sociology  Is  to  show  whether  the  anomaly  really 
exists,  and  if  so,  wherein  it  consists. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  say  the  rich  are  divided  against  the 
poor,  or  the  strong  against  the  weak,  or  the  educated  against 
the  uneducated ;  but  there  has  never  been  a  time  in  the  history 
of  the  world  when  so  much  riches  was  at  the  service  of  poverty 
as  today,  or  so  much  strength  enlisted  in  help  of  weakness,  or 
so  much  intelligence  devoted  to  general  enlightenment.  The 
attempt  to  show  that  there  is  irrepressil)le  conilict  between 
capital  and  lal^or  does  not  convince,  any  more  than  we  should 
be  satisfied  by  a  theory  of  health  that  pitted  the  stomach 
against  the  muscles.  Yet  everybo<ly  believes  that  there  is 
some  sort  of  conflict  of  interests  in  society,  and  that  this  con- 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         375 

flict  constitutes  the  problem  of  civilization.  How  far  can  we 
go  toward  stating  that  conflict,  and  thus  toward  formulating 
the  problem? 

The  proposal  of  this  task  almost  inevitably  carries  the 
implication  that  we  put  ourselves  in  the  attitude  of  a  prose- 
cuting attorney,  or  a  grand  jury,  and  that  we  are  bound  to 
bring  an  indictment  against  society.  Such  an  inquiry  as  we 
indicate  seems  to  require  a  pessimistic,  and  even  hostile,  tem- 
per. We  seem  to  commit  ourselves  to  the  assumption  that 
society  is  a  great  sinner,  perhaps  a  conscious  and  wilful  sinner, 
and  that  our  business  is  to  expose  its  criminality.  This  is  the 
tone  of  most  social  agitation,  and  all  sociologists  are  supposed 
to  belong  in  one  and  the  same  group  with  the  agitators. 

I  find  myself  more  and  more  convinced  that  this  is  not 
the  sane  view-point,  at  least  when  American  society  is  in  ques- 
tion, and  a  scientific  generalization  must  cover  all  the  cases. 
There  are  countries  in  which  the  above  presumptions  might  be 
justified,  but  with  us  they  are  not.  The  philosophers  who 
try  to  do  the  higher  thinking  for  their  fellow-citizens  in  this 
country  should  take  virtually  the  same  attitude  toward  our 
social  problems  that  the  wise  father  takes  when  he  reflects  on 
the  future  of  his  ten-year-old  boy.  That  father  does  not  put 
the  question  :  "  What  is  the  particular  brand  of  total  depravity 
to  be  beaten  out  of  this  boy?"  He  asks  rather:  "What  is 
the  particular  type  of  good  stuff  that  ought  to  get  its  growth 
in  this  boy,  and  how  can  I  secure  him  the  most  favorable 
conditions  for  turning  out  the  right  sort  of  man?" 

'  Our  American  society  is  a  case  of  social  childhood. 
(Rightly  considered,  the  same  is  true  of  every  other  society; 
each  generation  has  future  generations  in  trust,  just  as  each 
boy  is  father  to  the  future  man.)-  Our  future  is  still  to  be 
determined.  Our  problem  is :  "  How  far  can  we  go  toward 
realizing  the  completest  conception  of  civilization  that  has 
yet  been  formed,  and  toward  maturing  our  conception  as  we 
go?  Everything  that  we  learn  from  analysis  of  the  social 
process  elsewhere,  instructs  us  that  our  problem  involves  the 


376  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

same  balancing,  and  adjusting,  and  reciprocal  reinforcing  of 
interests  which  have  taken  place  through  struggle  and  co- 
operation in  the  past.  But  we  are  not  compelled  to  assume 
that  the  stage  of  conflict  which  we  have  to  deal  with  is  funda- 
mentally vicious.  We  disqualify  ourselves  in  advance  for 
judicial  treatment  of  this  problem,  if  we  allow  ourselves  to 
imagine  that  the  key  to  our  social  condition  will  be  found  in 
some  radical  vice  of  the  social  system  as  such. 

In  this  proposition  we,  of  course,  take  square  issue  with 
all  the  socialistic  and  anarchistic  philosophies.  No  good 
reason  appears,  however,  for  supposing  that  we  are  in  a  situa- 
tion which  would  be  improved  merely  by  substituting  other 
national  institutions,  either  political  or  economic,  for  our  pres- 
ent system,  if  such  a  change  were  possible.  Dallying  with 
dreams  of  social  salvation  by  such  means  simply  postpones 
calm  study  of  the  real  situation. 

I  should  say  tha^  the  primary  symptom  of  failing  health 
in  a  body  politic  is  lack  of  opportunity  for  the  individual  — 
opportunity  primarily  industrial,  then  of  every  other  sort  in 
which  the  interests  of  the  individual  are  capable  of  being  effec- 
tive. ^  Now,  in  spite  of  familiar  Jeremiads  to  the  contrary, 
with  a  small  percentage  of  exception,  tliere  is  opportunity  for 
every  man  in  America.  ^  More  opportunity  for  the  individual 
can  come  about  only  by  adjustment  of  the  interests  of  all  the 
individuals.  If  it  came  by  enforcing  the  dogmas  of  some  of 
the  individuals,  the  rest  would  immediately  conclude  that  the 
aggregate  of  opportunity  for  the  individual  had  been  dimin- 
ished, rather  than  increased ;  and  they  would  probably  be 
right.  Thus  we  should  come  to  a  new  case  of  the  immemorial 
process  —  frank  trial  of  strength  between  interests,  unless 
some  higher  interest  intervened  to  adjust  the  conflicting  inter- 
ests without  the  ultimate  resort. 

In  general,  the  higher  interest  which  the  philosopher  tries 
to  invoke  is  appreciation  of  the  objective  values  of  the  interests 
in  conflict,  and  adjustment  of  relations  which  will  insure  them 
more  nearly  their  pro  rata  claims.    In  our  country,  nothing  is 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         377 

to  be  gained  in  this  direction  by  starting  with  a  denial  of 
opiX)rtunity.  Not  every  man  can  get  on  as  fast  as  he  would 
like.^  Not  every  man  can  have  his  pick  of  places  in  which  to 
get  on.  Not  every  man  can  be  satisfied  with  the  kind  and 
degree  of  getting  on  which  he  is  able  to  accomplish.  This 
may,  after  all,  be  more  the  fault  of  the  man  than  of  society. 
It  certainly  does  not  justify  us  in  starting  our  analysis  of  the 
social  problem  by  asserting  the  radical  vice  of  defective  oppor- 
tunity. 

A  more  plausible  count  against  American  society  would 
be  that  -  the  ratio  of  opportunity  is  diminishing  instead  of 
increasing,  and  that  this  is  a  first-rate  symptom  of  declining- 
social  health.  •  This  contention  would  raise  several  questions ; 
e.  g. :  ( I )  Of  the  different  sorts  of  opportunity,  which  is 
meant?  (2)  Is  it  true  of  any  sort  of  opportunity?  (3)  Is  it 
possible  that  diminution  of  opportunity  may  in  any  sense  be 
an  index  of  progress  rather  than  of  regress^ 

On  this  latter  question  the  affirmative  certainly  has  a 
prima  facie  case.  It  is  a  sign  of  social  gain  that  there  is 
decreasing  opportunity  for  unfitness,  or  less  fitness,  to  count 
as  much  as  more  fitness.  One  of  the  factors  in  the  solution 
of  the  social  problem  must  provide  for  action  in  recognition 
of  this  principle.  Every  citizen's  opportunity  is  cramped  bv 
the  possibility  that  the  mayor,  and  heads  of  departments,  and 
members  of  the  city  council  may  be  unfit  for  their  duties. 
Every  citizen's  opportunity  is  diminished  if  excessive  num- 
^  bers  of  ornamental  parasites  are  billeted  upon  the  activities 
that  produce  utilities.  Illustrations  might  be  multiplied  indefi- 
nitely. 

Again  it  may  be  said  that  1  the  existence  of  an  unemployed 
class,  whatever  its  numbers,  is  a  sign  of  radical  defect  in  the 
social  order.  This  may  or  may  not  be  true.  The  existence 
of  an  unemployed  class  does  not  necessarily  imply  a  lack  of 
opportunity  in  any  proper  sense.     When  crops  are  rotting  in 

^  James  Russell  Lowell  once  said  that  he  thought  he  could  be  reasonably 
content  with  "  a  million  a  minute  and  expenses  paid." 


378  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Iowa  and  Kansas  for  lack  of  farm  laborers,  while  loafers  are 
rotting  in  Chicago  in  preference  to  earning  good  wages,  it  is 
sheer  nonsense  to  talk  of  restricted  opportunity.  Opportunity 
is  not  delivered  at  every  man's  door  in  a  $5,000  automobile; 
but  so  long-  as  there  are  calls  for  men  to  exert  themselves,  and 
the  results  of  exertion  are  sure  improvement  to  those  who 
make  the  effort,  the  essential  conditions  are  present  which 
always  have  been,  and  always  must  be,  the  basis  of  human 
progress.  Unless  it  does  come  from  lack  of  opportunity,  in 
the  strict  sense,  the  existence  of  an  unemployed  class  may  be 
essentially  an  individual  phenomenon,  not  due  to  any  institu- 
tional disarrangement  whatever. 

Once  more,  the  existence  of  defective,  dependent,  and 
delinquent  classes  may  be  charged  upon  society,  and  may  be 
used  as  evidence  that  something  is  wrong  in  society.  There 
is  a  sense  in  which  the  conclusion  is  correct;  just  as  we  are 
justified  in  concluding  that  there  is  something  wrong  in  a  man 
when  there  is  a  pimple  on  his  face.  The  something  wrong 
may  be  no  defect  in  his  moral  character,  no  conscious  viola- 
tion of  psysiological  law.  It  may  be  some  disarrangement  of 
physical  function,  which  all  the  wisdom  at  his  command  could 
not  have  prevented.  Doubtless  poor  health  is  in  most  cases  to 
a  certain  extent  the  fault  of  the  individual,  and^-poor  social 
health,  as  indicated  by  the  existence  of  the  sub-social  classes, 
is  in  some  degree  the  fault  of  society  as  a  whole.  \  This  neither 
proves,  nor  fairly  tends  to  prove,  that  the  evil  points  to  struc- 
tural defects  in  social  order.  It  does  not  prove  that  the  causes 
of  these  symptoms  would  be  removed  by  reorganizing  our 
institutions.  There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  if  the  form  of 
the  Chicago  city  government  had  been  different,  the  Iroquois 
disaster  would  have  been  avoided.  Evils  are  evils,  and  that 
they  can  occur  at  all  is  a  demonstration  that  the  human  lot  is 
far  from  ideal.  But  what  we  call  evils  may  be  essentially 
symptoms  of  individual  or  local  conditions.  They  may  have 
very  little,  if  anything,  to  do  with  the  institutions  of  society. 
None  of  them  may  be  negligible,  when  we  are  trying  to  state 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         379 

the  social  problem ;  but  we  must  certainly  guard  against  assum- 
ing that  they  have  a  cardinal  importance,  when  it  may  be  they 
are  accidental  details. 

Once  more,  we  may  say  virtually  the  same  thing  of 
illiteracy,  or  defective  intelligence  measured  by  any  other 
standard. 

Again:  Stratification  of  economic  classes— ^ wide  divisions 
between  rich  and  poor  —  may  be  alleged  as  per  se  evil,  and  a 
symptom  of  evil.  '  This,  too,  may  or  may  not  l^e  the  case;  and 
even  if  it  is,  the  source  of  the  evil  may  not  be  in  social  institu- 
tions at  all.  Perhaps  it  is  to  be  found  in  quite  a  different 
direction. 

To  indicate  my  own  theory  of  the  present  conflict  of  inter- 
ests, I  would  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  I  do  not  believe  the 
correct  statement  of  our  present  social  problem  will  be  made 
in  terms  of  institutional  structure  at  all.  I  do  not  mean  by 
this  to  imply  that  our  economic  and  political  and  social  and 
scientific  and  religious  institutions  have  reached  their  final 
form;  butiit  is  probable  that  changes  to  be  made  in  these  insti- 
tutions, in  any  visible  future,  will  be  more  the  effect  than  the 
cause  of  solving  our  present  social  problem.  - 

In  this  discussion  no  attempt  will  be  made  to  calculate  the 
relative  significance  of  factors  like  those  just  considered. 
They  may  be  investigated  to  better  purpose  in  another  con- 
nection. We  shall  confine  ourselves  to  a  single  factor  of 
present  social  struggle.  Whatever  its  ratio  of  importance  may 
prove  to  be,  it  is  certainly  more  radical  than  either  of  the 
factors  above  suggested.  It  is  the  point  of  departure  from 
which  we  claim  that  an  authentic  account  of  the  present  social 
situation  must  be  derived. 

Social  discontent  has  all  sorts  of  stimulus  today,  from 
individual  petulance  to  the  righteous  cry  of  persecuted  races. 
The  animus  of  this  argument  is  not  belief  that  we  have  no 
social  problem.  Every  nation  in  every  generation  has  its 
problem,  just  as  a  toy  on  approaching  maturity  always  faces 
the  problem  of  realizing  the  better  in  himself,  or  of  throwing 


38o  GENEIL\L  SOCIOLOGY 

himself  away;  and  the  problem  of  one  nation  is  likely  to  be 
essentially  that  of  all  nations  upon  the  same  plane  of  civiliza- 
tion. Our  American  problem  is  that  of  a  boy  with  every 
opportunity,  with  a  good  start  in  life,  with  plenty  of  instruc- 
tion about  the  difference  between  the  good  and  the  bad,  and 
then  facing  the  responsibility  of  making  his  own  choice 
between  the  good  and  the  evil  alternatives  that  offer  them- 
selves. With  mere  change  of  details,  the  case  is  the  same  in 
every  progressive  State.  Our  American  problem  is  not,  in 
the  first  instance,  that  of  reconstructing  institutions.  It  is  the 
problem  of  the  spirit  which  we  shall  show  in  working  the 
institutions  that  we  have.  That  spirit  will  either  make  or 
mar  our  institutions,  for  better  or  worse  service  in  the  hands 
of  future  Americans. 

This  may  be  expressed  in  a  much  simpler  way  by  varying 
the  analogy  just  used.  What  is  the  case  with  a  youth  who 
has  reached  man's  powers,  but  retains  boy's  interests?  Do 
we  set  him  down  as  abnormal,  as  structurally  vicious?  We 
might  reach  that  conclusion,  if  boyhood  held  over  too  long;  but 
during  an  indefinite  period  of  probation  we  simply  say :  "  He 
will  come  out  all  right;  he  has  not  yet  found  himself."  If 
we  were  to  use  more  abstract  terms,  we  might  say  that  he 
has  not  taken  up  life  as  a  business,  calling  for  the  best  of  his 
thought  and  feeling  and  resolution.  He  just  lives  along  in 
unconsciousness  that  life  has  any  problems,  and  perhaps  he 
loses  his  temper  only  when  someone  asks  him  to  be  serious 
and  to  look  at  himself  from  the  maturer  point  of  view. 

What  immediately  follows  should  be  considered  in  the 
light  of  this  comparison.  Uttered  among  business  men,  it 
would  of  course  be  set  down  as  academic  trifling  with  the 
whole  situation.  It  would  appear  to  them  to  be  an  excursion 
off  into  the  clouds,  to  avoid  confessing  inability  to  throw  light 
on  the  real  question;  but  we  must  discount  this  foregone 
conclusion. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  social  ])hilosopher's  stone,  and 
no  sociologist  need  apologize  for  not  having  found  one.     The 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         381 

nearest  we  shall  ever  approach  it  will  be  by  finding  means  of 
gradually  promoting  the  civilizing  process,  or,  to  use  more 
familiar  terms,  means  of  promoting  progress  in  directions 
which  are  generally  regarded  as  desirable.  This  progress  is 
to  be  anticipated,  in  our  type  of  society,  through  the  co- 
working  of  two  classes  of  activities,  viz. :  first,  the  incessant 
adjustment  of  petty  details — such,  for  instance,  as  the  revision 
of  building  laws,  and  reform  of  departments  charged  with 
enforcement  of  those  laws,  all  over  the  world,  following  the 
Iroquois  fire;  and  we  might  multiply  illustrations  through  the 
whole  scale  of  importance  in  all  departments  of  activity;  then, 
second,  we  must  look  for  increments  of  progress  through 
alteration  of  what  zve  speak  of  in  sociological  jargon  as  "the 
subjective  environment."  That  is,  ,all  the  mental  background 
and  foundation,  all  the  view-point  and  outlook,  of  each  gen- 
eration, has  to  undergo  modifications,  if  the  sort  of  progress 
necessary  in  order  to  cross  the  frontiers  of  that  generation's 
situation  is  accomplished.  ^  Every  philosophical  sociologist 
must  be  most  concerned  with  this  latter  factor  among  social 
forces.  It  is  the  factor  which  is  essential  in  the  end,  to  econo- 
mize and  co-ordinate  all  the  details  of  social  adjustment.  It 
is  the  factor  which  throws  a  searchlight  over  the  whole  field 
of  social  action,  and  lends  the  stimulus  of  imagination  and 
reflection  to  the  promptings  of  utility  in  determining  our  con- 
duct. It  is  the  factor  in  vidiich  are  centered  that  spirit  and 
attitude  toward  social  problems  which  draw  the  invisible  lines 
between  partisans  of  obstruction  and  partisans  of  progress. 
It  is  the  factor  in  which  general  education,  as  contrasted  with 
mere  transmission  of  tradition,  demonstrates  its  dynamic 
force.^ 

Our  general  proposition  then  is.  that  the  chronic  convict 
of  interests  in  America  today,  and  elsezvhere  with  different 

'  Too  much  credit  cannot  be  given  to  Dr.  Lester  F.  Ward,  as  the  prophet 
of  this  perception.  Vide  Dynamic  Sociology,  particularly  Vol.  II,  chap.  14. 
Whatever  objections  may  be  urged  to  his  philosophy  in  detail,  there  is  little 
room  for  doubt  about  the  wisdom  of  his  main  contention. 


382  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

accidents;  the  conflict  that  produces  the  most  tension,  the 
conflict  that  involves  the  most  radical  differences,  the  conflict 
that  is  fundamental  to  most  of  the  specific  issues  zvhich  pro- 
duce acute  social  disorders,  is  the  fundamental  hostility 
hetzveen  those  types  of  people  zvho  think  that  institutions 
should  alzuays  be  responsible  for  their  stezvardship  to  the  liv- 
ing generation,  and  those  other  types  of  people  who  act  on  the 
assumption  that  institutions  can  do  no  zurong. 

I  admit  that  in  form  this  is  merely  a  verbal  variation  of 
a  commonplace,  but  I  do  not  admit  that  a  very  large  fraction 
of  the  meaning  of  the  commonplace  has  been  discovered,  or 
that  more  than  a  fraction  of  that  fraction  has  been  applied. 
The  commonplace  itself  may  be  expressed  in  countless  ver- 
sions. It  is  a  formula  of  the  perpetual  opposition  between 
two  types  of  temperament,  or  between  the  two  types  of  tend- 
ency which  the  temperaments  sustain.  The  antagonism  is 
more  than  a  trial  of  strength  between  man  and  man,  or 
between  mere  casual  and  shifting  majorities.  It  is  a  cam- 
paign to  fasten  status  upon  an  evolutionary  world.  It  is  a 
comedy  of  cosmic  forces,  in  which  one  type  of  men  array  them- 
selves against  the  inevitableness  of  world-powers.  The  argu- 
ment of  the  plot  is  the  fatuity  of  those  men  who  assert  the 
sacredness  of  institutions  because  they  are  institutions,  and 
the  eternal  timeliness  of  men  who  discipline  institutions  to 
human  service. 

The  immediate  application  of  the  general  proposition  is 
this:  However  we  formulate  and  classify  the  concrete  inter- 
ests clashing  with  each  other  in  our  society,  we  find  that  in 
every  instance  the  issues  may  be  stated  in  terms  of  this  rudi- 
mentary antagonism.  We  usually  call  it  the  opposition 
between  conservatism  and  radicalism,  but  this  phrasing  covers 
up  the  real  nature  of  the  conflict.  It  is  really  a  conflict  between 
types  of  people,  viz. :  First,  those  who  are  afraid  to  turn  on  all 
the  light  there  is,  and  to  learn  all  that  can  be  learned  about  the 
facts  of  life.  These  constitute  a  perpetual  veto  power  demand- 
ing that  a   mass  of  questionable   things   shall   be   taken   for 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         383 

granted,  without  further  inquiry,  on  pain  of  outlawry  as  a 
common  enemy  —  the  "  nothing--to-arbitrate  "  attitude.  Sec- 
ond, those  who  think  that  nothing  is  too  sacred  to  be  investi- 
gated, and  that  all  the  sacredness  there  is  to  anything  is  the 
respect  it  compels  our  judgment  to  pay  after  measuring  it  by 
the  standards  of  evolving  human  purposes. 

The  analogy  with  which  we  introduced  this  statement  — 
viz.,  the  youth  who  has  not  outgrown  boyhood  —  is  a  par- 
allel in  only  one  particular  that  we  may  insist  on.  This  single 
resemblance  between  the  boy  and  our  society  consists  in  the 
fact  that. both  are  wedded  to  habit,  and  resent  demands  for 
reflection.  ,  With  this  we  may  take  leave  of  the  comparison, 
but  the  literal  proposition  calls  for  more  detail. 

Ever  since  the  industrial  revolution  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  it  has  been  a  commonplace  that  social 
conditions  are  rapidly  changing.  We  are  not  so  well  informed 
that  the  rate  of  change  in  our  regulative  ideas  has  been  slower 
than  the  rate  of  change  in  our  external  situation  (i.  e.,  that 
ideas  have  not  kept  pace  with  the  changes).  A  part  of  our 
present  condition  is  a  more  general,  more  acute,  and  more 
definite  feeling  than  is  on  record  before  that  something  is 
wrong.  We  need  to  examine  ourselves  thoroughly;  ^yet  we 
resist  adequate  beginnings  of  intimate  inspection  with  a  jeal- 
ousy that  turns  society  into  implacable  strife  between  tradi- 
tion and  criticism  among  its  members.  To  bring  out  the 
nature  of  this  conflict  most  distinctly,  we  may  put  the 
extreme  claims  of  the  opposing  tendencies  in  contrast  with 
each  other.  The  ultimatum  of  the  one  element  is  in  effect 
this :  The  present  social  system  must  and  shall  be  preserved. 
It  rests  on  the  sovereign  zvill  of  God  and  the  inviolable  order 
of  nature.  It  is  like  the  atmosphere  or  the  seasons  —  not  to 
be  challenged  by  human  wisdom,  nor  reconstructed  by  man's 
craft.  It  came  into  being  by  operation  of  laws  which  cannot 
be  controlled,  and  it  ivill  persist  in  spite  of  impudent  spasms 
of  revolt.  To  question  this  social  order  is  intellectual  stu- 
pidity and  social  treason.    Every  sign  of  disposition  to  treat 


384  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

these  self-evident  truths  as  legitimate  subjects  for  debate 
should  be  disapproved,  discouraged,  and,  if  need  be,  sup- 
pressed. 

On  the  contrary,  the  ultimatum  of  the  opposite  element 
is  on  these  lines :  The  existing  social  system  must  and  shall 
be  destroyed.  It  is  a  crazy  mixture  of  accident,  and  design, 
and  compromise,  with  a  negligible  unknown  modicum  of 
necessity.  It  is,  like  our  tools  and  our  amusements,  the  crea- 
ture of  our  knowledge  and  our  choice  and  our  contrivance,  to 
be  cast  aside  the  moment  zve  know  better  or  acquire  more 
skill,  or  to  be  exchanged  to  suit  variations  of  our  taste.  It 
was  constructed  to  meet  particular  occasions,  and,  in  spite 
of  impotent  opposition  to  the  march  of  human  progress,  it 
will  be  reconstructed  to  tit  changed  conditions.  To  question 
these  self-evident  truths  is  intellectual  stupidity  and  social 
treason.  Every  refusal  to  accept  these  positions  zvithout  quali- 
fication shotdd  be  taken  as  conclusive  evidence  of  treachery 
against  the  general  welfare.  It  should  be  denounced,  dis- 
credited, and  defeated. 

What  ground  is  there  for  asserting  that  the  opposition  of 
these  two  types  is  the  characteristic  conflict,  at  the  base  of  all 
special  antagonisms  in  our  own  time,  and  particularly  in 
America?  We  have  already  conceded  that  in  principle  the 
same  opposition  has  existed  in  every  society.  How  can  it  be 
the  peculiar  and  decisive  factor  in  our  present  situation?  The 
answer  is  simple.  *  Changes  in  the  relative  quantity  of  a  force 
may  amount  to  changes  in  quality  or  in  principle,  and  may 
transform  the  total  situation  in  which  the  force  acts.  Except 
in  temporary  crises,  and  these  only  within  narrow  areas,  the 
element  of  conscious  criticism  of  social  conditions  has  never 
approached  the  degree  of  energy  that  it  exerts  in  modern 
society.  More  individuals,  both  absolutely  and  relatively, 
apply  their  minds  to  social  problems  in  modern  society,  and 
particularly  in  America,  than  in  any  previous  period.  ^ 

Both  as  cause  and  effect  of  this  fact,  communicating  facili- 
ties in  unprecedented  variety  and  efficiency  are  at  the  com- 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         385 

mand  of  popular  thought  and  feehng.  Today  discontent 
does  not  rendezvous  at  a  cave  of  Adullam  in  the  wilderness. 
It  organizes  international  societies,  and  turns  the  world  into 
an  advertising  bureau.  It  furnishes  texts  for  the  preachers, 
and  topics  for  the  lecturers,  and  illustrations  for  the  teachers, 
and  motives  for  novelist  and  dramatist,  and  color  for  the 
artist,  and  issues  for  the  politician,  and  puzzles  for  the  cor- 
poration director,  not  less  than  campaign  cries  for  the  social 
agitator  and  abstract  problems  for  the  social  philosopher.  It 
is  even  breaking  up  the  old  monopoly  of  the  weather  as  a 
topic  of  conversation.  It  has  a  pass-key  to  every  home,  in 
the  pages  of  all  the  newspapers  and  most  of  the  magazines. 
It  has  its  special  organs  and  its  professional  promoters,  and 
there  is  some  sort  of  unsatisfied  demand  in  every  man  that 
may  be  counted  on  for  at  least  occasional  sympathy  with  its 
appeals. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  social  tinker  and  Jack- 
at-all-trades  is  abroad.  We  cannot  dispose  of  the  case  by 
calling  the  present  an  age  of  social  quackery  and  popular 
pseudo-science.  The  essential  matter  is  not  the  degree  of 
intelligence  displayed  by  popular  thinking,  but  its  force  and 
its  direction.  More  different  types  of  mind  are  applying  their 
energy  to  criticism  of  existing  institutions  than  in  any  pre- 
vious society. 

Whichever  horn  of  the  dilemma  we  take,  this  fact  has 
vital  importance.  If  we  decide  that  this  popular  thinking  is 
hysterical,  erratic,  and  irresponsible,  we  cannot  escape  the 
inference  that  it  is  consequently  all  the  more  dangerous.  It 
is  like  the  unleashed  gun  that  Victor  Hugo  describes,  threat- 
ening death  to  the  crew  and  disablement  to  the  ship.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  find  in  all  this  dissent,  and  challenge,  and 
protest,  a  germ  of  truth,  a  measure  of  justice,  a  tentative 
plausibility  sufficient  to  give  it  standing  in  the  court  of  reason, 
where  its  case  might  have  a  fair  hearing,  we  face  virtually  the 
same  conclusion.  ,  An  interest  is  urging  its  claims,  and  every- 
where a  competing  interest  refuses  to  listen,  r  Whether  the 


386  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

aggressive  interest  can  justify  itself  or  not,  this  attitude  is  a 
social  menace.  It  makes  the  most  real  and  the  most  radical 
social  conflict  that  could  be  imagined.  In  this  conflict  all 
the  lesser  problems  of  our  society  have  their  roots. 

If  it  has  not  been  said  plainly  enough  already,  emphasis 
must  be  put  on  the  further  detail  that,  whereas  the  two  tend- 
encies here  in  question  have  always  operated,  there  is  sharp 
contrast  between  the  chief  forces  now  and  formerly  behind 
them  and  supplying  their  energy.  In  other  eras  conservatism 
and  radicalism  were  matters  of  feeling;  they  are  now  rela- 
tively matters  of  judgment.  In  other  periods  they  were 
emotional  affinities;  now  they  are  reflected  policies.  Some 
men  used  to  persist  in  sluggish  and  obstinate  refusal  to 
change;  and  others  used  to  explode  in  passion  and  violence 
against  prevailing  conditions.  They  did  not  so  much  criti- 
cise each  other,  however,  as  they  blandly  fought  each  other. 
Today  there  is  no  fighting  till  there  has  been  a  long  and  futile 
campaign  of  intellectual  sapping  and  mining.  The  point  is 
not  that,  on  particular  issues,  the  one  type  of  men  or  the 
other  have  the  world-forces  invariably  on  their  side.  The 
fact  is  rather  that  no  considerable  class  of  men  consistently 
accepts  the  method  of  adjusting  conflicting  interests  which 
the  logic  of  the  social  process  decrees.  Accordingly,  the 
modern  world  is  tense  with  strife  between  stereotyping  par- 
ties and  innovating  parties,  neither  of  which  is  able  to  subject 
its  contentions  to  the  objective  test  of  adaptation  to  the  essen- 
tial requirements  of  the  social  process.  -  In  any  joining  of 
issues  each  interest  attacks  the  others'  positions  with  argument.  ■ 
In  the  case  of  two  opponents  upon  any  social  question,  the 
crudity  of  the  logical  process,  and  the  real  weakness  of  both 
sides,  is  that  each  interest  is  always  ready  to  assault  the  other's 
position,  but  neither  will  submit  to  an  unprejudiced  expert 
examination  of  its  own.  This  new  conservatism  and  pro- 
gressivism  is  a  one-sided  intellectual  attitude.  Each  side  claims 
the  right  to  put  the  other  on  the  defensive,  but  neither  will 
submit  to  a  judicial  investigation  of  the  rightfulness  of  its  own 
attack. 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         387 

The  old  proverb,  "  They  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish 
by  the  sword,"  is  no  truer,  however,  than  a  modern  para- 
phrase: ^They  that  take  logic  shall  perish  by  logic;  appealing 
to  reason,  we  must  sooner  or  later  yield  to  reason.  .  Violence, 
as  a  means  of  struggle,  is  now  ostensibly  obsolete.  Reason  is 
the  recourse  upon  which  we  profess  to  rely.  But  thus  far 
reason  is  more  often  used  as  a  weapon  of  offense  than  as  a 
means  of  co-operation.  We  have  simply  selected  new  pat- 
terns for  our  swords  and  our  spears.  We  have  not  yet  beaten 
them  into  plowshares  and  pruning-hooks.  Our  argument,  as 
just  explained,  is  not  that  one  party  in  a  specific  social  quarrel 
—  say,  between  the  friends  and  enemies  of  trusts  —  is  right, 
and  the  other  is  wrong.  The  proposition  is  that  the  lines  of 
right  and  wrong  bisect  both  sides  of  the  quarrel.  We  are  still 
maintaining  a  regime  of  feud,  only  on  a  higher  cultural  plane. 
There  is  radical  strife  within  each  party,  and  this  strife  is  the 
ultimate  issue  in  all  our  particular  conflicts. 

In  other  words,  the  essential  conflict  today  is  between  the 
intellectual,  the  knowledge  interest,  and  all  the  other  interests 
combined,  i  The  primary  issue,  between  groups,  within  groups, 
and  even  between  conflicting  motives  in  the  individual,,  is  that 
of  assumption,  on  the  one  hand,  and  knowledge,  on  the  other, 
as  the  basis  of  action.!  Shall  we  first  of  all  desire  to  know, 
or  even  consent  to  know,  all  the  bearings  of  our  conduct, 
before  we  choose  our  course  of  action ;  or  shall  we  take  refuge 
in  the  claim :  Whatever  is,  is  right,  if  it  favors  us,  and  what- 
ever is,  is  wrong,  if  it  balks  our  wish? 

Every  modern  man  is  supposed  to  assume  that  grozvtJi 
is  the  destiny  of  the  world,  and  should  be  the  policy  of 
society.  With  respect  to  the  vested  interests  of  their  own 
class  most  men  repudiate  this  premise  and  resist  the  policy. 
Instead  of  welcoming  the  inquiry,  "  How  do  the  claims  of 
my  interest  comport  with  the  development  of  welfare  on  the 
whole?"  most  men  enact  the  fallacy  of  begging  the  question, 
in  its  bearings  on  their  class  interest,  and  of  demanding  that 
the  whole  world  shall  acquiesce  in  this  moral  evasion.     That 


388  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

is,  we  flatter  ourselves  that  civilization  has  passed  from  a 
regime  of  force  to  a  regime  of  reason;  but  under  this  sup- 
posed regime  of  reason  it  is  the  practice  of  each  separate  inter- 
est to  assert  the  special  privilege  of  unreason.  This  simply 
means,  in  effect,  that,  so  far  as  the  particular  interests  have 
the  power  to  choose,  they  are  still  maintaining  the  regime  of 
force,  instead  of  loyally  accepting  the  logic  of  the  social 
process.  This  is  the  present  "war  in  our  members.''  Reason 
is  good  as  a  weapon  against  alien  interests;  it  is  bad  when  it 
requires  that  our  interest  shall  submit  to  the  logical  process 
of  social  valuation.  Reason  is  useful  as  a  restraint  upon  our 
enemies;  but  we  want  none  of  it  when  it  limits  our  freedom 
to  look  out  for  ourselves. 

The  ramifications  of  interests  are  so  complex  in  modern 
society  that  direct  forcible  collisions  are  seldom  good  policy; 
but  our  concessions  to  other  interests  are  mainly  in  the  spirit 
of  the  principle  that  "half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread," 
rather  than  willing  application  of  searching  tests  to  the  valid- 
ity of  our  own  claims.  The  consequence  is  that  social  strug- 
gle is  still  largely  the  opposition  of  force  to  force.  The 
pressure  is  merely  less  direct,  less  immediate,  less  violent,  but 
in  principle  not  less  intolerant.  Interests  are  engaged  in  a 
more  many-sided  struggle  than  when  society  was  less  differ- 
entiated. They  can  seldom  exert  their  full  force  against  oppo- 
sition from  a  single  direction.  They  necessarily  yield  to  the 
superior  force  of  society  as  a  whole.  We  should  not  on  that 
account  deceive  ourselves  into  assuming  that  the  spirit  of 
social  struggle  has  thrown  oft"  the  presumption  of  separate- 
ness,  and  has  assimilated  the  presumption  of  common  partici- 
pation in  the  social  process.  Life  as  a  whole  is  infinitely  more 
kindly  than  the  separate  interests  that  compose  life.  Hence 
increasing  gentleness  in  the  process,  without  the  same  rate 
of  improvement  in  the  animus  of  the  elements  that  carry  on 
the  process. 

This  radical  conflict  between  individualistic  feeling  and 
corporate    reason   betrays    itself   the   moment   two   particular 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         3cS9 

interests  clash  —  say,  employers  and  laborers;  public  owner- 
ship vs.  private  ownership  of  municipal  franchises;  the  law 
vs.  the  trusts;  or  whatever.  There  is  no  common  logical 
premise  upon  which  the  opposing  interests  can  stand  and 
judge  of  their  quarrel  on  its  merits.  They  can  simply  take 
account  of  their  resources  for  ofTense  and  defense,  and  by 
calculus  of  cost  of  fighting  figure  out  at  last  how  much  they 
can  afford  to  invest  in  maintaining  a  campaign,  or  how  heavy 
a  premium  each  can  afford  to  pay  to  insure  compromise. 
Accordingly,  the  social  process  has  gone  much  farther  in  pro- 
ducing certain  moral  adjustments  than  the  logic  of  the  social 
process,  working  as  social  pedagogy,  has  gone  in  procuring 
acceptance  of  the  corresponding  logical  lessons.  We  have  no 
authoritative  social  principles  which  rise  above  the  illusions 
of  individualism,  and  constitute  a  tribunal  to  which  all  special 
interests  feel  bound  to  appeal. 

The  theoretical  opposition  of  monarchists  to  democracy 
rests  on  a  phase  of  this  fact. »  To  the  monarchist,  democracy 
is  foreordained  anarchy,  because  it  has  no  unifying  agent. 
Democracy  is  constitutionalized  contradiction.  Democracy  is 
license  of  all  interests  to  conduct  predatory  warfare  upon  each 
other,  restrained  by  no  sovereign  principle.  The  alleged 
"general  welfare"  appears  to  the  monarchists  an  empty 
phrase,  unless  there  is  some  final  authority  to  decide  what 
is  the  general  welfare,  and  to  strive  for  it  as  the  supreme 
interest.  As  consensus  of  opinion  in  society  is  a  chimera,  the 
only  rational  alternative,  they  think,  is  a  central  power,  with 
a  policy  of  its  own,  and  with  strength  to  coerce  recalcitrants 
and  dissenters. 

^^  The  history  of  democracy  may  he  said  to  have  shozvn  two 
things:  first,  that  democracy  escapes  anarchy  bv  incorporat- 
ing in  disguised  form  the  essential  strength  of  monarchy; 
second,  democracy  achieves  progress,  in  spite  of  its  contained 
contradictions,  by  gradual  socialisation  of  the  conflicting 
interests.  ^  For  our  academic  purposes  we  may  express  the 
particular   problem   of   socialization    which    modern    societies 


390.  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

have  reached,  in  the  extremely  abstract  formula:  ^The  radical 
social  problem  is  how  to  intellcctualize  the  present  conflict 
of  interests,  or  to  transform  direct  conflict  of  interests  into  an 
intelligent  teleological  program.  ., 

What  has  been  said,  and  what  remains  to  be  said,  must  put 
a  meaning  into  this  abstraction.  In  general,  the  problem  is 
to  secure,  on  the  part  of  each  interest,  a  genuinely  judicial 
attitude,  in  the  place  of  a  partisan  attitude,  toward  the  basis 
of  its  owji  claims. 

We  may  illustrate  by  the  contrast  between  the  present 
attitude  of  the  United  States  and  European  nations  toward 
the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  a  completely  objective  attitude. 
Viz.,  at  present  each  says:  "My  claim  is  sound;  what  are 
you  going  to  do  about  it?"  The  judicial  attitude  would  be: 
"  Come,  let  us  reason  together,  and  discover  how  our  con- 
flicting claims  look  in  the  light  of  all  the  knowledge  there  is 
about  social  cause  and  effect,  the  extension  of  civilization  in 
general  being  the  measure  of  desirability." 

In  trying  to  give  concrete  meaning  to  the  abstraction  just 
reached,  we  find  that  the  situation  may  be  described  in  terms 
that  are  more  familiar  in  this  connection,  but  they  both  give 
and  take  a  new  meaning  in  relation  with  the  proposition  now 
before  us.  Thus  :^  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  intelligent  reports 
of  the  meaning  of  life  are  today  all  in  terms  of  groziih,  differ- 
entiation or  integration,  Jiezv  adaptations,  better  adjustments, 
evolution;  the  implied  major  premise  of  all  interests  except 
the  intellectual  interest  is  still  the  contradictory  presumption 
of  status.  "  Our  interest  is  here  to  stay.  It  is  to  hold  all  it 
has  got.  It  is  to  keep  all  its  advantages,  and  get  more  if  it 
can."  This  means  that  the  knowledge  interest  has  not  yet 
been  admitted  to  a  full  partnership  in  the  enterprise  of  social- 
ization. It  works  as  a  prospector  and  appropriator  in  all  the 
processes  of  inventing  technique,  and  of  exploiting  it  for  indi- 
vidual gain.  It  has  no  right  of  suffrage  for  improving  society. 
It  is  permitted  free  scope  for  reflection  on  what  has  l)een,  so 
long  as  that  reflection  does  not  disturb  presumptions  behind 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY         391 

the  present  status.  So  soon  as  the  intellectual  interest  pro- 
poses to  project  into  real  life  the  hypothesis  that  the  present 
status  is  debatable,  that  its  continuance  may  be  merely  pro- 
visional, that  it  rests  on  insufficient  grounds,  that  insistence 
upon  its  exclusive  rights  interrupts  the  essential  social  process ; 
then  the  intellectual  interest  becomes  a  disturber  of  the  peace. 
So  long  as  it  is  merely  ''academic" — that  is,  so  long  as  it 
keeps  out  of  the  world,  and  refrains  from  taking  part  in  the 
real  collision  of  interests;  so  long  as  it  is  mere  mental  gym- 
nastics—  the  world  patronizes  it,  and  smiles  complaisantly 
on  it,  very  much  as  it  does  on  the  rough  sports  of  street  boys 
in  the  public  playgrounds  of  cities.  They  are  safety-valves 
of  energies  that  might  be  dangerous  without  this  exercise. 
But  when  the  intellectual  interest  demands  a  hearing  in  the 
directors'  meeting,  or  in  the  legislative  committee  room,  or 
in  the  counsels  of  campaign  managers,  or  as  umpire  between 
laborers  and  employers,  or  in  reconciling  ecclesiastical  differ- 
ences, then  it  is  jeered  or  sneered  or  browbeaten  out  of  court. 
The  only  things  that  seriously  threatened  to  interfere  with 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  nomination  as  the  presidential  candidate  of 
his  party  in  1904  were  two  cases  in  which  he  threw  his  influ- 
ence on  the  side  of  calling  conflicting  interests  to  justify  them- 
selves logically  —  the  Northern  Securities  case,  and  the  Coal 
Strike.  It  is  not  yet  a  part  of  the  sanctioned  social  order  for 
interested  parties  to  present  themselves  at  the  bar  of  reason 
to  have  their  rights  passed  upon  without  prejudice.  They  do 
not,  and  they  are  not  expected  to,  say :  *'  In  the  light  of  the 
best  that  we  know  about  the  life-process,  and  without  favor- 
itism toward  persons,  what  are  the  fair  rights  of  the  type  of 
interest  that  I  represent,  in  view  of  the  counter-claims  of  the 
other  factors  in  the  social  process?"  They  do,  and  they  are 
expected  to,  say :  "  I  have  interests  that  must  be  admitted, 
without  opening  the  question  of  their  validity.  I  proj^ose  to 
fight  for  my  rights  accordingly.  Whoever  disputes  my  claims 
must  be  prepared  to  defend  himself.  The  outcome  must 
depend  on  relative  resources." 


392  GENER.A.L  SOCIOLOGY 

In  short,  the  situation  is  this : 

1.  The  incipient  intellectual  interest  has  never  been  so 
general  as  it  is  today,  and  this  is  particularly  true  of  the 
United  States. 

2.  The  intellectual  interest  is  not  content  to  confine  itself 
either  to  abstractions  outside  of  life,  or  to  improvement  of 
particular  parts  of  the  technique  of  life;  it  is  bent  on  making 
itself  felt  in  the  whole  process  of  socialization,  and  thus  shows 
its  partnership  with  a  new  phase  of  the  rightness  interest. 

3.  The  key  to  the  present  situation  is  in  the  fact  that  thus 
far  this  peculiar  intellectual  interest  serves  as  the  principal 
weapon  of  attack  upon  other  interests  represented  by  other 
persons.  It  is  not  yet  so  reconciled  to  the  social  process  that 
it  is  a  means  of  controlling. the  interests  of  its  own  repre- 
sentatives in  subordination  to  the  interests  of  society. 

4.  Wherever  there  is  social  tension  today,  one  of  two 
alternative  descriptions  fits  the  case,  viz. : 

a)  The  situation  is  one  selfishness  pitted  frankly  against 
another;  i.  e.,  a  purely  static  phenomenon,  a  trial  of  strength, 
not  of  principles.  In  the  last  resort  police  or  armies  must 
step  in  and  control.     Or  — 

b)  The  situation  shades  off  into  a  case  that  involves  the 
two  opposing  principles  which  we  are  discussing,  reason  and 
dogmatism.  On  the  one  hand  is  the  interest  that  wants  to 
have  the  immediate  issue  judged  by  something  outside  of 
itself.  This  outside  something  is  a  standard  supposed  to  be 
indifferent  to  the  individual  claims  of  the  contending  parties. 
On  the  other  hand,  represented  by  each  of  the  active  con- 
testants in  the  given  struggle,  is  the  arbitrary  demand  that 
the  particular  interest  at  stake  shall  be  accepted  as  its  own 
criterion,  and  shall  not  be  held  liable  to  redefinition.  The 
intellectual  interest  is  usually  represented  by  a  third  party, 
plus  a  fraction  within  each  principal  party  not  recognized  by 
the  contestants  as  having  any  right  to  change  the  nature  of  the 
quarrel. 

5.  The   second   case   just   described    is   typically    modern. 


CONFLICT  OF  INTERESTS  IN  MODERN  SOCIETY        393 

indicated  as  the  distinctive  situation  in  each  of  the  social  con- 
flicts with  which  our  society  is  famiHar.  The  first  case  is 
merely  perpetuation  of  a  situation  belonging  in  earlier  stages 
of  social  development. 

6,  The  concrete  issues  themselves  must  consequently  be 
regarded  as  secondary,  while  the  primary  problem  is  presented 
by  the  arrest  of  the  intellectual  factor  of  the  process  at  the 
point  of  collision  of  interests. 

7.  The  sociological  presumption  is  that  the  process  of 
social  growth  is  most  seriously  arrested  at  the  points  where 
consciousness  of  arrest  is  most  definite. 

Further  analysis  of  this  radical  conflict  between  the  intel- 
lectual interest  and  the  unorganized  opposition  of  all  other 
interests,  must  be  conducted  by  taking  up  in  turn  specific  con- 
flicts, and  observing  the  operation  of  this  factor  in  each.^ 
In  further  study  of  the  fundamental  conflict,  or  of  the  sec- 
ondary conflicts  in  which  it  emerges,  it  will  not  be  unprofitable 
to  consider  Ratzenhofer's  attempt  to  state  the  present  situa- 
tion in  Austria."*  The  author  himself  credits  it  with  merely 
local  and  temporary  value.  His  schedule  of  conflicting  inter- 
ests is : 

1.  The  State  interest. 

2.  The  national  interests. 

3.  The  economic  interests. 

a)  Those  that  rest  on  earnings. 

b)  Those  that  rest  on  property. 
Under  3,  0)  : 

4.  Extractive  labor. 

5.  Small  tenantry. 

6.  The  handicrafts. 

7.  Retail  trade. 

8.  Commerce. 

9.  Trade  and  labor  employees. 
Under  3,  b)  : 

ID.    Transportation  as  an  end  unto  itself. 

'  For  illustration  vide  Yarros,  "  The  Labor  Question  and  the  Social  Prob- 
lem," American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  IX,  p.  768. 
*  Wesen  und  Zweck,  sec.  71. 


394  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

11.  Capital  as  an  end  unto  itself. 

12.  The  nobility. 

13.  The  clergy  (established  church). 

14.  The  other  professional  classes. 

We  must  refrain  from  attempting  to  schedule  in  detail 
in  this  argument  the  conflicting  social  interests  in  the  United 
States,  parallel  with  those  found  by  Ratzenhofer  in  Austria. 
If  our  method  of  approach  is  in  any  degree  successful,  it  will 
presently  assist  in  making  out  such  a  schedule.  We  are  now 
following  the  clue,  however,  that  the  principal  conflict  of 
interests  in  advanced  societies  today  is  between  those  tend- 
encies that  press  for  relentless  pursuit  of  knowledge  about 
the  facts  of  the  situation,  with  a  view  to  action  in  accordance 
with  the  knowledge,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  those  tendencies 
that  resist  intellectual  prying  into  the  foundations  of  con- 
ventionality, aiid  demand  that  there  shall  be  no  going  back 
of  present  social  structure,  and  no  opening  of  questions  about 
possible  reconstruction  of  institutions  in  the  interest  of  gen- 
eral welfare. 

Special  sociology  has  the  task  of  following  out  this  clue 
in  concrete  cases.  Of  course,  our  hypothesis  must  fit  the 
facts  first  of  all  in  the  field  of  economic  conflict.  In  this  con- 
nection, then,  and  taking  the  economic  situation  as  the  phase 
of  society  most  requiring  study,  our  main  thesis  may  be 
reduced  to  the  theorem  :  All  our  modern  economic  conilicts  run 
hack  to  failure  of  accommodation  betzveen  tJie  interests  of  per- 
sons and  the  institutions  of  property.  The  particular  proposition 
which  we  have  to  maintain  is  therefore:  In  the  economic 
Held,  the  radical  conflict  between  the  intellectual  interest  and 
all  other  interests  at  present  takes  the  form  of  demand  for 
investigation  of  the  equities  of  property,  and  of  resistance  to 
the  demand.^ 

"  Vide  Hadley,  Freedom  and  Responsibility.  In  spirit,  President  Hadley's 
argument  supports  the  main  position  of  this  chapter,  though  the  relation  is 
indirect. 


PART  VI 

CONSPECTUS  OF  CONCEPTS  DERIVED  BY  ANALYSIS  OF 
THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 

RELATION    OF    PART    VI    TO    THE    WHOLE    ARGUMENT 

In  the  previous  analysis  we  have  attempted  to  focus  our 
viev;^  on  human  experience  just  as  it  is,  with  the  utmost  exclu- 
sion of  everything  which  virtually  prejudges  the  objective 
reality.  We  have  attempted  to  establish  an  outlook  from 
which  the  real  relations  between  portions  of  human  experience 
are  visible.  We  have  made  gradual  approaches  to  clear  vision 
of  the  facts,  through  the  partial  and  pictorial  renderings  of 
life  in  tentative  sociologies.  We  have  arrived  at  a  theorem 
of  the  form  in  which  human  experience  must  be  represented, 
if  its  details  are  to  be  thought  in  their  objective  relations. 
Our  theorem  certainly  marks  the  latest  frontier  of  explora- 
tion in  the  methodology  of  social  science.  If  it  endures  the 
test  of  criticism,  it  will  set  the  standards  for  future  discovery 
and  exposition  of  the  real  content  of  human  life. 

What  we  have  reached,  however,  is  a  series  of  generaliza- 
tions, of  concepts,  of  categories.  We  have  inspected  the  asso- 
ciation of  men  with  each  other  in  countless  variations  of  cir- 
cumstances, and  we  have  made  out  that  the  relationships 
which  human  associations  display,  under  these  different  cir- 
cumstances, fall  into  certain  typical  forms,  manifest  certain 
typical  contents,  and  involve  certain  typical  interconnections. 
These  forms,  contents,  and  interconnections  occupy  every 
degree  in  the  scale  of  generalization,  from  the  specific  acts 
of  an  individual  up  to  the  inclusion  of  all  the  acts  of  all  indi- 
viduals in  such  a  conception  as  social  evolution.  These  con- 
cepts taken  together  make  up  an  apparatus  for  qualitative 
analysis  of  human  experience,  past  or  present.  That  is,  so 
far  as  we  have  gone,  we  have  made  out  types  of  reaction 
between  persons,  and  we  have  described  and  named  those 
reactions.     We  are  thus,  so  far,  equipped  just  as  the  physi- 

397 


398  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

cists,  chemists,  and  biologists  were  when  they  had  generaHzed 
the  elementary  phenomena  in  their  fields,  and  had  adopted  a 
working  terminology  for  the  notions  so  generalized.  This 
equipment  both  promoted  further  investigation  of  concrete 
conditions,  and  it  put  tentative  results  in  form  to  be  conven- 
iently criticised  in  the  light  of  new  discovery. 

For  the  sake  of  clearness,  it  is  in  order  at  this  point,  first, 
to  make  a  conspectus  of  the  generalizations  to  which  our 
analysis  has  led;  second,  if  the  notions  have  not  been  suffi- 
ciently defined  in  the  previous  discussion,  to  describe  briefly 
the  precise  content  of  the  most  important  categories. 

The  meaning  of  this  for  general  sociolog}^  is,  in  a  word, 
that  the  terms  of  our  analysis  stand  for  the  different  phases 
of  reality  which  we  have  found  in  real  life.  In  order  to  think 
life  as  it  is,  the  portion  of  life,  past  or  present,  to  which  we 
give  attention,  must  be  subsumed  under  these  terms  or  their 
equivalents,  until  inspection  of  life  proves  that  other  terms 
must  be  substituted. 

In  these  propositions  no  claim  is  made  for  the  mere  verbal 
symbols  of  the  concepts  with  which  we  are  dealing.  As  a 
matter  of  terminology,  no  particular  virtue  attaches  to  the 
words  here  chosen  to  represent  the  ideas.  Sociologists  who 
might  indorse  the  substance  of  the  present  argument  may 
have  used  other  terms  for  virtually  the  same  categories.  Quite 
likely  other  terms  may  be  preferable.  If  so,  adoption  of  them 
might  not  in  any  way  affect  the  essentials  of  the  analysis  or 
the  synthesis  which  we  have  outlined  in  the  previous  dis- 
cussion. 

More  than  this,  each  sociologist  gives  prominence  to  cer- 
tain categories  which  other  sociologists  really  or  apparently 
neglect.  Each  sociologist  may  have  a  scale  of  his  own  of  the 
categories  which  all  in  some  way  employ.  This  merely  means 
that  our  quantitative  analysis  of  the  social  reality  is  far  less 
advanced  than  qualitative  analysis.  To  speak  more  literally, 
each  investigator  of  the  social  process  approaches  his  work 
from  a  point  of  departure  somewhat  different  from  that  of 


RELATION  OF  PART  VI  TO  THE  WHOLE  ARGUMENT    399 

every  other.  The  perspective  of  experience  varies  with  these 
different  angles  of  approach.  Ahhough  the  terms  into  which 
different  investigators  analyze  experience  may  show  great 
variation,  apparent  and  even  real,  the  methods  which  they 
are  applying  may  not  be  radically  unlike,  and  the  results 
which  they  reach  may  be  complementary  to  a  much  greater 
degree  than  they  are  contradictory. 

We  might  illustrate  conveniently  by  comparing  with  our 
own  categories  those  of  three  American  sociologists.  If  we 
place  in  parallel  columns  the  leading  concepts  of  Ward's  Pure 
Sociology,^  Giddings's  Inductive  Sociology^  Ross's  "  Moot 
Points  in  Sociology,"  ^  and  the  schedule  below,^  there  will  at 
first  glance  seem  to  be  more  contrast  than  likeness  between 
them.  Closer  inspection  will  show  that  the  differences  resolve 
themselves  largely  into  (a)  verbal  variations,  (&)  differences 
in  selection  of  points  of  attention,  (c)  different  ranges  of 
generalization  included  in  the  schemes.  The  meaning  of 
(a)  and  {b)  is  so  obvious  that  specifications  may  be  omitted. 
It  will  suffice  to  illustrate  the  last  case  alone.  Ward's  term 
"synergy,"  for  instance,  is  a  larger  generalization  than  any 
of  those  contained  in  either  of  the  other  schemes.  It  places 
the  center  of  his  system  in  the  cosmic  process  at  large,  rather 
than  in  the  more  limited  social  process.  Nothing  in  either 
of  the  other  schemes  would  resist  correlation  with  the  more 
inclusive  concept  "synergy."  On  the  other  hand,  each  of 
the  less  generalized  concepts  in  each  of  the  other  schemes  is 
in  a  sense  a  theorem  about  details  in  the  social  process.  The 
same  orders  of  details  may  not  have  been  selected  for  general- 
ization or  for  synthesis  in  the  different  cases,  but  it  remains 
to  be  seen  how  much  exclusion,  and  how  much  simple  reduc- 

^  At  this  writing  the  companion  volume,  Applied  Sociology,  has  not 
appeared. 

^  I  refer  to  this  volume,  because  more  of  the  categories  peculiar  to  the 
author  appear  together  in  it  than  in  his  earlier  books. 

'  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  IX,  p.  206.  The  papers  in  this  series 
form  a  part  of  the  author's  latest  book,  The  Foundations  of  Sociology.  ' 

*  Chap.  29. 


400  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

tion  to  common  denominators,  will  be  necessary  to  bring  these 
different  schemes  into  a  common  system. 

For  instance,  Ward's  concept  "telesis,"  Giddings's  terms 
for  the  distinctive  social  types,  Ross's  category  "social  con- 
trol," and  either  of  the  less  important  notions  in  the  present 
argument,  say  "  culture,"  may  have  a  conspicuous  place  in  the 
terminology  and  the  method  of  one  sociologist,  without 
appearing  explicitly  at  all  in  the  exposition  of  other  sociolo- 
gists. It  would  not  necessarily  follow  that  the  terms  are 
mutually  exclusive,  or  that  the  system  which  emphasizes  one 
of  them  impeaches  the  systems,  which  emphasize  others.  On 
the  contrary,  as  analysis  and  synthesis  proceed,  it  is  quite  likely 
that  concepts  which  now  seem  to  indicate  contradiction  will 
prove  to  complement  the  analysis  in  which  they  do  not  occur. 
In  the  present  immature  condition  of  our  science,  the  atten- 
tion of  workers  is  arrested  at  different  points,  but  the  approxi- 
mate knowledge  which  has  been  gained  of  the  social  process 
at  each  of  these  points  will  prove  ultimately  to  have  a  place 
in  correlation  with  the  knowledge  gained  by  all  other  workers 
at  all  other  points. 

By  way  of  review,  the  chapter  next  to  follow  presents  a 
conspectus  of  the  concepts  actually  employed  in  the  argument. 
In  a  few  cases,  concepts  not  prominent  in  the  present  argu- 
ment, but  evidently  important,  have  been  inserted,  with  refer- 
ences to  the  writers  who  best  represent  them. 

The  serial  order  in  which  the  categories  are  arranged  has 
a  certain  value,  but  it  is  rather  convenient  than  essential.  The 
order  in  which  our  minds  may  or  must  represent  the  parts  of 
a  whole  depends  upon  the  direction  from  which  we  attempt 
to  gain  our  view  of  the  whole.  This  direction  is  always  deter- 
mined in  part  by  the  distinctive  purposes  that  are  variants  of 
the  personal  equations  of  the  observers.  Our  claim  is  there- 
fore, in  the  main,  that  objective  knowledge  of  the  social 
process  must  in  some  way  correlate  details  under  categories 
among  which  those  in  our  conspectus  have  an  important 
rank,  rather  than  that  the  present  correlation  is  exhaustive  or 
inflexible. 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

SCHEDULE  OF  SOCIOLOGICAL  CONCEPTS 

1.  The  Conditions  of  Society.     (Chap.  30,  sec.  i.) 

2.  The  Elements  of  Society.     (Idem,  sec.  2.) 

3.  Society.     (Idem,  sec.  3.) 

4.  The  Physical  Environment.     (Idem,  sec.  4.) 

5.  Interests.     (Chap.  31.)   (Considered  as  elements  of  the  social  process, 
chap.  14.) 

6.  The  Individual.     (Chap.  32.) 

7.  The  Spiritual  Environment.     (Chap.  33,  sec.  i.) 

8.  Contacts.     (Idem,  sec.  2.) 

9.  Differentiation.     (Idem,  sec.  3.) 
ID.  Group.     (Idem,  sec.  4.) 

11.  Form  of  the  Group.     (Idem,  sec.  5.) 

12.  Conflict.     (Idem,  sec.  6.) 

13.  Social  Situations.     (Idem,  sec.  7.) 

14.  Association.     (Chap.  34,  sec.  i.) 

15.  The  Social.    (Idem,  sec.  2.) 

16.  The  Social  Process.     (Idem,  sec.  3.) 

17.  The  Nature'OF  the  Social  Process.     (Chap.  15.) 

18.  The  Content  of  the  Social  Process.     (Chap.  25.) 

19.  Stages  of  the  Social  Process.     (Chap.  17.) 

20.  Social  Evolution.     (Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  chap.  5.) 

21.  Social  Structure.     (Part  II.) 

22.  Social  Function.     (Part  III,  and  chap.  35,  sec.  i.) 
•23.  Social  Forces.     (Chap.  35,  sec.  3.) 

24.  Social  Ends  or  Purposes.     (Idem,  sec.  4.) 

25.  Subjective  Environment.     (Idem,  sec.  5.) 

26.  Social  Consciousness.     (Idem,  sec.  6.) 

27.  Social  Ascendency.     (Ross,  "  Social  Control,"  Preface.) 

28.  Social  Control.    (Idem.) 

29.  Social  Order.     (Idem,  p.  i,  et  passim.) 

30.  Social  Status.     (Idem,  pp.  396,  402.) 

401 


•402  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

31.  Social  Unity.     (Pp.  103-6.) 

32.  Corporation.  (Tonnies,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  X, 
P-  573-) 

33.  Constitution  of  the  Corporation.     (Idem,  p.  576.) 

34.  Social  Mechanism.     (Chap.   11;    chap.  7;    of.  Tonnies,  loc.  cit.  pp. 

584,  585.) 

35.  Social  Authority.     (Chap.  16.) 

36.  The  Social  Organism.     (Parts  II  and  TIL) 

37.  Social  Institutions.  (Ward,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  X, 
p.  589) 

38.  Social  Relationships.     (Chap.  13.)  ^ 

39.  Social  Reactions.     (Chap.  4.) 

40.  Social  Adjustment.     (Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  pp.  467.  569.) 

41.  Social  Assimilation.  (Simons,  American  Journal  of  Sociology. 
Vols.  X,  p.  790;    XI,  pp.  53,  234,  386,  539) 

42.  Integration.  (Ward,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  VIII, 
p.  721.) 

43.  Individualization.     (Chap.  37,  sec.  i.) 

44.  Socialization.     (Idem,  sec.  2.) 

45.  Genesis.      (Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  Part  II.) 

46.  Genetic  Structures.  (Ward,  A)nerica)i  Journal  of  Soviology,  Vol.  X, 
p.  590.) 

47.  Social  Institutions.     (Idem,  p.  589.) 

48.  Telesis.     (Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  Part  III.) 

49.  Stimulus  and  Response.  (Giddings,  A  Theory  of  Social  Causation, 
"  American  Economic  Association  Publications,"  Third  Series,  Vol.  V, 
No.  I,  Part  II.) 

50.  A  Series  of  Less  General  Categories  Involved  in  Every  Analysis 
OF  A  Complete  Situation  ;  scheduled  in  general  in  the  order  in  which 
they  emerged  in  the  previous  discussion,  and  without  a  theorem  as  to 
their  hierarchic  order. 

A.  The    effective    interests ;     varied    in    form,    content,    and    intensity, 
according  to  the  circumstances  of  each  situation.     (Chap.  27.) 

B.  Struggle  or  conflict  of  interests.     (Part  V.) 

C.  Co-operalion  or  conjunction  of  interests.     (Chaps.' 25  and  26.) 

D.  Moralization.      (Chap.  24.) 

E.  Culture.     (Chap.  25.) 

F.  Barbarism.     (Idem.) 

G.  Civilization.     (Idem.) 


SCHEDULE  OF  SOCIOLOGICAL  CONCEPTS  403 

H.  Equalization.     (Idem.) 

I.  Restraint.     (Idem.) 

J.  Means  to  equilibrium  of  II  and  I.     (Idem.) 

a)  Effective  power  of  elements  representing  each  interest. 

b)  Power  of  self-restraint  in  elements  representing  each  interest. 

c)  Loyalty  to  the  future  of  humanity. 

d)  Insurance  of  material  interests. 

e)  Progressive  assimilation  of  science. 

/)   Progressive  evolution  of  individual  and  social  interests  both  in 
quantity  and  in  quality. 
K.  Social  production.     (Idem.) 
L.  Social  consumption.     (Idem.) 

M.  Social  achievement.  (Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  p.  15,  et  passim.) 
N.  Partnership  of  the  individual  in  social  achievement.  (Chap.  25.) 
O.  Capitalization  of  social  development.      (Wallis,  American  Journal 

of  Sociology,  Vol.  VII,  p.  763;    and  An  Examination  of  Society.) 
P.  Stages  in  the  development  of  civilization.     (Chaps.  17  and  25.) 
Q.  Social  progress.     (Ward,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  X, 

p.  605.) 
R.  The  dynamic  agency  of  institutions.      (Chap.  26.) 
S.  The  State.     (Chap.  18.) 
T.  Political  principles.     (Idem.) 
U.  Property.      (Ward,   American  Journal   of  Sociology,  Vol.    X,   pp. 

596,  598.) 
51.   A  Group  of  Methodological  Concepts. 

A.  The  sociological  point  of  view.     (Chap.  35,  sec.  7.'') 

B.  Pure  sociology.      (Ward.) 

C.  Applied  sociology.     (Ward.) 

D.  Descriptive  sociology.     (Spencer.) 

E.  Expository  sociology. 

F.  Normative  sociology. 

G.  Technological  sociology. 
H.  Sociological  problems. 

I.  Social  problems.     (Part  IX.) 

*  Cf.    Small,    "  The    Sociologists'    Point    of    View,"    American    Journal    of 
Sociology,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  145  ;    "  What  is  a  Sociologist?  "  ibid.,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  468. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

THE    CONDITIONS    OF    SOCIETY;     THE    ELEMENTS    OF 
SOCIETY;   SOCIETY;  THE  PHYSICAL  ENVIRONMENT 

1.  The  Conditions  of  Society. —  The  point  of  attention 
is  not  now  a  bill  of  particulars  containing  a  catalogue  of  condi- 
tions prerequisite  to  the  existence  of  society.  We  shall  not 
attempt  to  suggest  such  a  schedule.  We  merely  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  reflection  cannot  long  dwell  upon  the  subject 
of  society  without  hitting  upon  the  perception  that  society 
presupposes  conditions  of  some  sort.  It  makes  no  difference 
what  may  be  our  definition  of  "society;"  something  will  in 
any  case  have  to  be  presupposed.  This  is  merely  an  incident 
common  to  all  subjects  of  knowledge,  and  for  our  present 
purposes  it  is  enough  to  register  the  concept.  Its  uses  are 
so  evident  that  no  one  who  has  taken  the  first  steps  in  philoso- 
phy will  doubt  its  logical  necessity.  The  fourth  section  of  this 
chapter  discusses  one  prime  "  condition  "  of  society,  and  chap. 
31  deals  with  the  second  co-ordinate  condition. 

2.  The  Elements  of  Society. —  Similar  propositions 
will  suffice  under  this  "title.  However  we  may  define  "  society," 
to  every  mind  that  employs  the  term  it  is  a  whole  of  some  sort, 
and  thus  by  implication  composed  of  parts.  In  whatsoever 
manner  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  relations  between  parts  in 
this  particular  whole,  "  society,"  they  must  necessarily  be 
elements  which  compose  the  entity  to  which  we  apply  the 
name.  It  is  possible  to  conceive  of  larger  or  smaller  com- 
panies of  men  as  the  "elements"  of  society;  for  example, 
States  or  families.  It  is  possible  to  think  of  individuals  as 
the  social  units.  It  is  even  possible  to  treat  the  interests  or 
desires  into  which  individuality  may  be  analyzed,  as  the  prime 
factors  of  society.  Perhaps  there  are  occasions  when  each 
of  these  views  is  for  the  time  being  correct.  At  all  events, 
so  long  and  so  far  as  we  are  concerned  with  any  phase  of 

404 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  405 

what  we  may  call  molecular  movements  in  society,  rather 
than  with  mass  or  molar  phenomena,  we  are  boimd  to  search 
for  the  ultimate  factors  which  co-operate  to  produce  the  whole. 
The  fact  that  we  may  have  outgrown  a  lively  interest  in  this 
primary  matter,  because  we  long  since  reached  conclusions 
about  it,  does  not  in  the  least  change  the  fact  that  this  concept, 
"elements  of  society/'  is  among  the  everyday  instruments 
in  all  our  sociological  thinking.^ 

3.  Society. — Although  we  substituted  another  term  for 
the  word  "society"  in  our  final  scheme  of  analysis,^  the  fact 
remains  that  the  term  has  played  an  important  role  in  the 
development  of  sociology,  and  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  it 
can  go  out  of  use.  We  have  seen  that  it  is  a  concept  too  vague 
and  shifting  for  precise  scientific  purposes,  yet  it  may  afford 
relief,  even  in  scientific  discussions,  from  too  constant 
endeavors  after  precision  by  use  of  the  more  exact  term  "  the 
social  process."  Whether  the  term  "society"  has  been  criti- 
cally delimited  or  not,  it  has  usually  connoted  virtually  the 
same  phenomena  for  which  the  term  "the  social  process" 
stands  in  our  argument.  "Society"  denotes,  in  general,  that 
phase  of  the  conditions  of  human  life  which  consists  of  inevi- 
table action  and  reaction  betzveen  many  individuals.  "  Society  " 
often  means,  too,  the  particular  circuit  of  influences  between 
individuals  which  we  bring  within  our  field  of  view  for  a 
given  purpose.  Although  it  is  at  best  an  approximate  con- 
cept, it  is  useful  and  necessary. 

4.  The  Physical  Environment. —  Sociology  is  not  a 
physical  science,  but  at  every  step  knowledge  of  society  waits 
for  answer  to  the  question  :  Hozv,  and  to  zvhat  extent,  are  those 
activities  of  men  zvhich  zve  are  considering  affected  by  that 
natural  environment  zvhich  the  physical  sciences  interpret? 
An  earthquake,  and  a  thunderstorm,  and  an  outbreak  of 
human  passion,  and  a  play  of  human  fancy^  all  occur  in  the 

^  Cf.  Bentley,  "  The  Units  of  Investigation  in  the  Social  Sciences,"  Annals 
of  the  American  Academy,  Vol.  V,  p.  915. 

^  Chap.  1 2. 


4o6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

same  world.  They  have  to  be  accounted  for,  in  one  case  as 
well  as  another,  by  reference  wholly  or  in  part  to  physical 
laws.  Crimes  against  property  are  more  frequent  in  Chicago 
in  winter  than  in  summer,  and  certain  classes  of  crime  are 
more  ingenious  in  London  than  in  Ceylon.  One  of  the 
reasons  is  that  in  the  former  cases  the  struggle  with  nature 
for  the  means  of  subsistence  is  more  indirect  or  more  diffi- 
cult. The  conditions  of  life  are  more  relentless.  It  costs 
more  effort  to  live  at  all.  The  criminal  impulse  is  more 
sharply  stimulated  under  the  pressure  of  the  more  acute  neces- 
sity. 

When  we  walk  the  streets  of  modern  cities,  in  which 
thousands  of  children  never  get  nearer  than  the  pavement  to 
the  natural  face  of  Mother  Earth,  we  may  well  wonder 
whether  such  children  ever  reach  a  clear  idea  that  the  condi- 
tions of  life  are  primarily  natural,  not  artificial.  It  is  hardly 
to  be  wondered  at  that  children  who  grow  up  in  such  sur- 
roundings recruit  the  ranks  of  doctrinaires  who  seem  to  start 
with  the  supposition  that  human  institutions  are  made  of  stuff 
secreted  wholly  by  human  brains;  that  they  can  be  made 
what  we  are  bound  they  shall  be;  that  they  are  not  limited 
by  any  hard  facts  which  human  preferences .  must  take  into 
account. 

Not  such  people  alone,  however,  are  confused  in  their 
minds  about  the  physical  basis  of  life.  'All  the  people  who  live 
under  the  conditions  of  modern  civilization,  and  are  not 
engaged  in  direct  production  of  what  we  call  raw  material, 
or  in  some  of  the  vocations  that  cope  directly  with  nature, 
like  engineering  or  navigation,  are  under  strong  and  subtle 
temptation  to  forget  how  near  we  are  to  the  soil.-  So  much  is 
done  for  every  one  of  us  by  other  people,  that  we  are  tempted 
to  undervalue  our  debt  to  nature.  Even  the  farmer  can  turn 
his  load  of  wheat  into  an  Aladdin's  lamp,  which  he  has  only 
to  produce  at  the  country  store,  and  he  conjures  up  all  sorts 
of  things,  from  comforts  and  finery  for  his  family,  to  instru- 
ments by  which  he  can  converse  at  will  with  the  outside  world, 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  407 

or  power  to  transport  himself  with  the  speed  of  the  wind  to 
the  centers  of  human  action.  Little  wonder  that  we  are  apt 
to  act  as  though  we  lived  in  a  purely  artificial  world.  Now, 
the  A  B  C  of  world-wisdom  is  that  we  are  all  of  the  earth, 
earthy.  We  sneer  at  the  Russian  because  Napoleon  was  witty 
enough  to  say  that,  if  we  scratch  him,  we  find  a  Tartar.  We 
forget  that,  if  we  scratch  any  man,  we  find  a  savage.  People 
are  better-domesticated  animals.  We  have  our  primal  animal 
wants.  If  they  are  not  satisfied,  we  presently  betray  the 
primal  animal  passions.  We  must  depend  for  our  food,  and 
shelter,  and  growth,  and  multiplication,  and  security  upon 
the  same  fields,  and  forests,  and  rocks,  and  rivers,  and  rains, 
and  sunshine  that  produce  and  protect  the  other  animals.  This 
is  the  meaning  at  last  of  the  latest  wars  in  Cuba  and  the 
Transvaal  and  China.  It  is  the  meaning  of  the  belated  toler- 
ance of  the  Turk  in  Europe.  It  is  the  meaning  of  Japan's 
fight  for  Korea  and  Manchuria,  of  British  imperialism,  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  tests  of  it  that  are  coming  in  South 
America.  All  the  higher  flights  of  life  are  anchored  to  the 
sordid  earth.  When  we  are  trying  to  understand  why  men  do 
this  and  that,  or  what  better  way  it  is  possible  to  adopt,  the 
constant  term  in  the  calculation  is  that  we  are  earth-children. 
We  are  not  exempt  from  physical  law.  We  are  not  superior 
to  vulgar  physical  limitations.  .-We  can  raise  our  heads  only 
so  far  as  successful  provision  for  primary  material  needs 
grants  us  partial  release  from  the  constant  task  of  life.  -- 

V  The  majority  of  the  people  in  the  world  today  are  close  to 
the  margin  of  settlement  with  nature. ,  It  is  the  exceptional 
man  who  has  paid  for  tomorrow's  dinner.  Let  the  processes 
of  life  stop  for  a  day,  and  physical  misery  stares  us  in  the  face. 
Even  rich  nations  are  still  only  a  span  from  immediate  distress 
for  the  necessities  of  life.  Put  an  effective  blockade  around 
England  for  three  months,  and  Westminster  Hall  and  St. 
Paul's  cathedral  would  look  like  grinning  skulls  in  a  grave- 
yard. The  same  thing  is  true  in  principle  of  every  nation. 
•  ■Political  economy  taught  us  long  ago  that  the  bulk  of  the 


4o8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

wealth  of  the  world  is  literally  perishable  goods.  It  was 
produced  yesterday,  and  is  consumed  by  tomorrow.  / . 

Possibly  these  illustrative  forms  of  statement  put  too 
much  emphasis  in  proportion  on  our  need  of  material  things. 
These  are  in  one  sense  secondary,  after  all.  Yet  human  beings 
are  virtually  one  with  the  plants  and  the  animals,  in  depend- 
ing upon  nature  for  their  own  organic  conditions  and  quali- 
ties and  conduct.  We  are  offshoots  of  nature  in  our  inherited 
traits,  our  health,  our  temperament  and  temper,  our  radius 
of  action,  and  our  productivity  in  proportion  to  effort.  Nature 
sets  our  tasks,  and  doles  out  our  wages,  and  prescribes  our 
working  hours,  and  tells  us  when  and  how  much  we  may 
play  or  learn  or  fight  or  pray.  Life  is  an  affair  of  adjusting 
ourselves  to  material,  matter-of-fact,   inexorable  nature. 

This  is  not  asserting  materialism.  It  is  simply  calling  to 
mind  a  phase  of  the  human  lot  which  is  so  close  to  us  that 
familiarity  breeds  contempt.  It  is  not  the  whole  story, 
because,  if  it  were,  we  should  no  more  think  about  it  than  the 
thistles  and  the  prairie  dogs  do.  Society  is  not  composed  of 
thistles  and  prairie  dogs,  but  society  has  to  make  its  career  in 
the  same  material  world  where  the  thistles  and  the  prairie  dogs 
find  their  home.  Every  social  question,  from  electing  a  pope 
down  to  .laying  out  a  country  road,  is  in  the  last  analysis  a 
question  of  what  to  do,  in  the  face  of  the  grudging  soil,  and  the 
cruel  climate,  and  the  narrow  space,  of  the  region  from  which 
we  get  our  food. 

This  is  §imply  another  way  of  saying  that  all  the  problems 
of  sociology  are  problems  of  the  real  world,  and  they  have  to 
be  treated  in  the  same  matter-of-fact  way  in  which  we  treat 
problems  of  agriculture  and  sanitation.  Indeed,  this  is  the 
best  way  of  showing  what  relation  sociology  bears  to  the  other 
sciences.  It  is  not  a  substitute  for  them,  nor  a  short-cut  to 
escape  using  them."  Sociology  is  an  attempt  to  correlate,  from 
the  view-point  of  human  purposes,  all  the  things  which  all 
the  sciences  bring  to  light.'  -  Every  fact  or  law  bearing  on  our 
relations  with  nature  must  be  brought  into  our  calculations, 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  409 

when  we  are  trying-  either  to  understand  what  society  has 
done  in  the  past,  or  to  foresee  how  society  ought  to  act  in 
tlie  future.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  our  information 
comes  from  physics,  or  chemistry,  or  biology,  or  geology,  or 
political  economy.  If  it  brings  to  light  real  factors  that  affect 
the  life  of  real  men,  those  real  men  are  interested  in  having 
those  factors  placed  in  their  due  proportions  in  the  program 
of  society.  This  is  simply  systematized  common-sense;  only 
our  common-sense  has  not  yet  gone  very  wide  or  deep  into 
knowledge  of  nature  for  social  purposes,  and  such  knowledge 
of  nature  as  we  have  has  remained  rather  uncommon  sense. 

For  instance,  Cardinal  Gibbons  forcibly  champions  the 
position  of  the  Catholic  church  on  divorce  (1903).  Without 
detracting  from  the  services  of  the  Catholic  church  to  civiliza- 
tion, in  standing  guard  over  the  purity  of  the  family,  there  are 
facts  in  nature  which  the  Church  has  never  fairly  considered 
in  laying  down  its  laws.  When  a  modern  State  legislates  on 
the  subject  of  marriage  and  divorce,  it  must  do  so  on  the 
basis  of  a  different  conception  of  marriage  from  that  which 
the  Church  assumes.  Marriage  is  primarily  a  natural  phe- 
nomenon, and  not  primarily  a  religious  phenomenon.  It  must 
necessarily  in  the  end  break  down  any  laws  which  insist  on 
regarding  it  as  exclusively  either  the  one  or  the  other. 

We  must  possibly  justify  ourselves  for  wasting  time  and 
strength  about  such  a  commonplace  as  this  dependence  of  men 
upon  physical  nature.  What  is  the  use  of  arguing  about 
something  that  nobody  denies?  Logically,  no  use  whatever; 
practically,  all  the  use  in  the  world.  It  is  what  we  feel,  not 
what  we  know,  that  gives  the  bent  to  our  action.  The  people 
who  are  interested  in  theorizing  about  social  questions  fall 
into  two  main  classes :  first,  those  who  are  too  much  oppressed 
by  physical  needs  to  be  aware  that  there  are  any  other  factors 
in  the  life-problem ;  second,  those  who  are  so  far  absolved 
from  immediate  physical  care  that  they  have  hard  work  to 
admit  anything  but  intellectual  or  moral  or  aesthetic  aspects  of 
any  social  question.   It  is  necessary  to  emphasize  this  axiom- 


4IO  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

atic  detail  of  our  social  condition,  not  because  anyone  denies 
it,  but  because  we  are  so  apt  to  think  it  is  not  worth  affirming. 
If  we  should  pass  in  review  all  the  social  theorizings  of  the 
last  century,  no  more  frequent  vice  would  be  in  evidence  than 
some  form  of  virtual  denial  that  social  conduct  must  square 
with  the  requirements  of  physical  surroundings. 

^  Even  those  manifestations  of  life  which  are  apparently 
most  spiritual  have  their  existence  within  and  by  permission 
of  conditions  that  are  ultimately  physical.  \  These  physical 
conditions  have  effects  which,  though  more  remote  and  more 
partial,  are  just  as  real  as  the  influence  of  physical  conditions 
in  the  case  of  a  volcanic  eruption,  or  the  destruction  of  crops 
by  a  cyclone.^  For  example,  we  may  be  concerned  with  the 
quantity  and  quality  of  literary  production  in  the  United 
States.  At  first  glance,  this  is  purely  an  intellectual  matter. 
De  Tocqueville,  Mill,  Carlyle,  Renan,  and  many  others  have 
accordingly  registered  very  crude  judgments  in  disparage- 
ment of  Americans  because  we  have  comparatively  little  liter- 
ary merit. ^  It  would  seem  that  the  most  superficial  reference 
to  the  conditions  of  human  life  would  have  prevented  these 
childish  reproaches.  The  physical  conditions  of  American 
life  thus  far  have  necessarily  distrained  our  powers  and 
devoted  them  to  pioneer  work.  We  ha\-e  had  to  be  hewers 
of  wood  and  drawers  of  water.  Individual  poverty  is  no  bar 
to  intellectual  greatness,  but  societies  are  not  likely  to  pro- 
duce individuals  intellectually  great,  or  at  least  to  give  them 
the  conditions  in  which  their  merit  can  manifest  itself  in 
aesthetic  or  philosophic  creation,  until  the  societies  are  well 
advanced  toward  emancipation  from  the  most  absorbing  strug- 
gle with  physical  conditions.  In  so  far  as  America  has  pro- 
duced thinkers,  the  probal)ility  is  that  our  common  heritage 
in  the  great  world-society  has  had  more  to  do  with  this  devel- 
opment than  the  peculiar  conditions  of  our  home  situation. 

'  For  a   certain  class   of   illustrations  ride   Proal,   La   crime   et   le  suicide 
passionelles. 

*  Cf .  Lecky,  Democracy  and  Liberty,  Vol.  I,  pp.  127-29. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  411 

In  other  words,  the  physical  conditions  hold  a  mortgage  upon 
men's  powers  which  society  can  never  completely  discharge. 
The  terms  of  the  obligation  may  be  considerably  modified. 
Individuals  and  classes  may  sometimes  be  liberated  from  the 
heaviest  burdens  of  the  conditions,  but  <^ur  title  to  free  action 
in  this  wt)rld  is  always  subject  to  Dame  Nature's  dowry 
rights,  and  the  accruing  dues  never  fail  utterly  to  be  collected. 

For  instance,  the  business  of  harvesting  natural  ice  and  the 
business  of  composing  poetry  alike  go  on  subject  to  the  condi- 
tions in  question ;  but  if  two  trusts  were  formed,  the  one  to 
control  the  natural  ice  market  in  the  United  States,  and  the 
other  the  poetry  market,  the  relative  attention  which  all  con- 
cerned would  need  to  pay  to  the  physical  laws  limiting  supply 
would  be  great  in  the  case  of  the  ice,  and  small  in  the  case  of 
the  poetry.  This  does  not  prove  that  poetry  is  independent 
of  physical  conditions,  but  simply  that  ice  is  more  directly  and 
exclusively  subject  to  physical  conditions.  Ability  to  arrive 
at  a  certain  approximate  working  measure  of  the  relative 
agency  of  the  different  conditions  concerned  in  social  reactions 
is  thus  among  the  prime  desiderata  for  the  sociologist.  This 
ability  is  simply  sociological  common-sense.  It  is  perception 
of  the  elements  of  the  situation,  and  judgment  of  proportions 
among  the  elements. 

Consequently,  if  we  are  dealing  with  individual  or  group 
cases  of  industrial  incapacity,  for  instance,  we  confront  the 
question  how  largely  it  is  congenital.  If  we  are  dealing  with 
the  vice  of  intemperance  or  of  licentiousness,  we  have  prob- 
lems, in  part  at  least,  of  pathology  and  of  biological  philoso- 
phy. If  we  are  dealing  with  more  serious  criminality,  we  are 
in  the  thick  of  the  positive  questions  about  the  measure  of 
irresponsibility  in  consequence  of  violation  of  physical  law 
by  the  delinquent  or  his  ancestors. 

In  this  survey  we  cannot  enter  specifically  into  any  of  the 
questions  thus  suggested.  They  all  belong  more  properly 
elsewhere.  The  main  contention  may  be  repeated  in  this 
form :    The  knowledge  that  men  will  want  above  all  other 


412  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

knowledges,  when  they  are  wise  enough  to  understand  their 
own  interests,  is  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  human  life. 
When  men  reach  ability  to  maintain  an  effective  demand  for 
this  knowledge,  they  will  be  dissatisfied  with  the  ways  in  which 
our  sciences  satisfy  this  demand.  Specifically,  we  have  no 
respectable  report  of  the  ways  in  which  the  operation  of  cosmic 
laws  has  determined  the  course  of  human  development.  His- 
tory as  it  is  written  is  very  largely  a  solemn  farce,  because  it 
persists  in  devoting  relatively  so  much  more  strength  to  the 
superficial  and  inconsequential  factors  in  the  development  of 
society  than  to  the  essential  factors.^ 

If  we  may  illustrate  somewhat  in  the  idiom  of  those  who 
still  speak  as  though  the  secrets  of  history  were  to  be  found  in 
the  working  of  single  responsible  causes,  we  may  say,  for 
example,  that  it  was  not  bad  politics,  nor  bad  political 
economy,  but  ignorance  of  agricultural  chemistry,  that  over- 
threw the  Roman  Empire.  We  might  find  also  that  the 
Crusades  were  less  inspired  by  piety  than  by  poverty,  and 
that  this  poverty  was  primarily  the  correlate  of  outraged 
physical  law.  Hundreds  of  historians  have  discoursed  very 
wiseacrely  about  the  incidents  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War, 
but  they  have  hardly  thought  to  inquire  whether  violation  of 
hygienic  law,  that  produced  the  plague  and  the  Black  Death 
all  over  Europe,  was  not  somehow  a  more  fundamental  influ- 
ence in  making  domestic  and  international  politics  than  all  the 
questions  between  courts  and  all  the  results  of  campaigns. 

The  various  materialistic  and  mechanical  philosophies  of 
history,  that  have  attempted  to  find  the  secret  of  human  devel- 
opment in  the  inevitable  operations  of  nature,  have  not  over- 
stated the  absolute  value  of  this  fundamental  and  constant 
factor.  They  have  simply  miscalculated  its  ratio  and  some 
of  its  other  relations  to  all  the  other  factors.  There  is  neither 
free  will  nor  free  thought  nor  free  feeling  in  the  world  of 
people.     Feeling,  thought,  and  volition  are  tethered  to  fixed 

'  For  incisive  description  of  .antithetical  vices  of  historians  and  sociologists, 
vide  Steinmetz,  in  Durkheim's  L'annce  sociologique  for  1900,  p.  53. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  413 

physical  conditions.  This  is  as  true  of  the  rhapsody  of  the 
devotee,  the  exhortation  of  the  zealot,  the  vision  of  the  poet, 
the  speculation  of  the  metaphysician,  as  it  is  of  the  geogra- 
pher's search  for  the  North  Pole  or  the  miner's  delving  for 
gold  or  coal.  All  that  men  do  or  desire  is  either  a  drifting 
on  the  tide  of  physical  conditions,  or  primarily  some  sort  of 
reaction  upon  those  conditions.  The  extent  to  which  men 
can  act,  and  the  mode  of  their  action,  is  not  to  be  deduced 
from  the  formulas  of  an  absolutely  defined  freedom;  for  that 
condition  exists  only  in  the  speculative  imagination.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  formulas  of  volition  are  not  to  be  derived 
from  physical  law  alone.  The  scope  of  sentient  action  is, 
however,  merely  that  restricted  area  to  which  the  individual 
or  the  generation  is  limited  by  the  conditions  of  physical 
nature. 

All  this  is  nearly  as  trite  among  sociologists  as  it  is  among 
natural  scientists,  but  it  will  doubtless  require  many  genera- 
tions for  many  people  to  adjust  themselves  properly  to  this 
axiom  of  social  science.  Nobody  knows  all  that  it  involves. 
The  psychologists  are  trying  to  find  out  for  us  how  far  we 
are  obeying  physical  impulse  when  we  suppose  ourselves  to 
be  acting  from  strictly  psychical  initiative.  Lester  F.  Ward 
has  committed  himself  to  the  theses  that  "the  desires  of  sen- 
tient beings  constitute  true  natural  forces,"®  and,  further- 
more, that  "the  desires  of  men  obey  the  Newtonian  laws  of 
motion."'^  Whether  these  theorems  hold  literally  or  not,  they 
are  symptoms  of  intelligence  about  the  common  basis  of  all 
human  facts.  We  are  portions  of  matter.  We  are  fragments 
of  the  physical  world.  Not  a  force  that  shapes  the  earth's 
crust,  or  puts  forth  vegetable  life,  or  generates  animal  forms, 
is  suspended  in  the  special  spheres  where  men  buy  and  sell 
and  compete  and  contract  and  legislate  and  pursue  political 
and  social  rivalries,  or  promote  the  aesthetic  arts  and  carry  on 
scientific    research    and    cultivate   spirituality.      The   physical 

*  Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  I,  pp.  458,  468,  486,  etc. 
Ubid.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  95  ff- 


414  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

forces  are  all  prescribing  the  thiis-far-and-no-farther  for  each 
and  every  one  of  these  activities.  Whether  we  are  concerned 
with  an  individual  teacher  or  preacher  threatened  with  ner- 
vous prostration,  or  a  football  team  unable  to  win  games,  or 
a  slum  population  showing  an  abnormally  high  death-rate, 
or  an  industrial  class  developing  peculiar  types  or  numbers 
of  physical  or  mental  diseases,  or  the  multiplication  of  degen- 
erates in  certain  strata  of  society,  or  the  alleged  decadence  of 
a  nation,  or  the  apparent  retrogression  of  one  of  the  great 
races — in  either  case  we  encounter  the  same  primary  condi- 
tion, as  the  first  factor  to  be  estimated.  Whether  the  £acts 
are  viewed  as  social  or  individual,  one  line  of  evidence  to  be 
traced  out  is  that  which  concerns  sanitation,  shelter,  dietary, 
physical  habits,   physical   surroundings,   physical   antecedents. 

It  is  not  implied  that  the  sociologist  must  assume  conclu- 
sions upon  such  questions  as  those  which  were  in  debate 
between  Spencer  and  Weismann.  Whether  heredity  or  envi- 
ronment is  the  more  efficient  factor  in  human  evolution  is  more 
of  a  mystery  to  the  biologist  today  than  he  has  ever  acknowl- 
edged before.  Whatever  laymen  or  biological  middlemen 
may  assert,  very  little  is  known  about  the  ratio  of  the  func- 
tions of  these  two  factors.  The  point  to  be  urged  is  that  the 
same  forces  which  have  reduced  the  universe  from  formless 
star-dust  to  a  stupendous  system  of  organized  processes  are 
still  the  undercurrents  of  every  human  life.  Through  the 
facts  of  food  and  sex,  for  example,  we  are  indissolubly  united, 
from  the  past  and  tow^ard  the  future,  with  the  ceaseless  opera- 
tion of  the  physical  forces  that  have  laid  course  after  course 
in  the  structure  of  the  worlds,  and  of  the  organic  prcxlucts 
upon  the  world.  We  may  never  unravel  the  methods  of  the 
physical  forces  that  make  the  ultimate  conditions  of  life,  but 
we  may  know  them  as  facts,  and  may  make  somewhat  appro- 
priate account  of  them  in  our  calculations  of  the  possibilities 
of  practical  conduct. 

There  is  a  favorite  fancy  in  Germany  that  insomnia  is 
more  prevalent  at  the  full  of  the  moon  than  during  the  rest 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  415 

of  the  month.  It  is  no  fancy  that  every  motion  of  every  indi- 
vidual Hfe  has  its  proportional  place  in  that  organization  of 
cosmic  force  of  which  the  single  act  is  a  minute  fragment. 
It  is  superstition  to  ask  what  were  the  positions  of  the  stars 
when  the  Mikado  or  the  Czar  was  born,  and  to  construct 
horoscopes  to  foretell  the  incidents  of  their  careers.  It  is 
science  to  trace  the  community  of  substance  and  of  destiny 
between  our  earth  and  the  rest  of  the  cosmic  system,  and  to 
learn  how  the  specific  conditions  that  prevail  here  are  but 
details  of  the  common  conditions  which  obtain  throughout 
the  universe.  It  is  a  parody  of  science  to  select  some  single 
form  in  which  matter  moves  —  say  gravitation  —  and  to  go 
through  the  motions  of  explaining  all  physical  and  human 
facts  in  terms  of  this  form  alone.  It  is  the  utmost  sobriety 
and  wisdom  to  realize  that  all  physical  and  human  facts  have 
universal  antecedents  in  common.  We  are  bound  to  discover, 
in  the  first  place,  how  far  and  how  decisively  this  universal 
physical  element  interpenetrates  the  subsequent  and  special 
human  manifestations  which  are  our  immediate  concern. 

The  ouiniprcscncc  of  the  universal  cosmic  conditions 
around  and  zvithin  every  human  motion  is  the  first  prime 
factor  to  be  estimated  at  its  actual  relative  worth  in  every 
analysis  of  an  individual  act  or  of  a  group  status.  When 
Feuerbach  said,  "  Man  is  what  he  eats,"  he  would  have  been 
wholly  right  if  man  did  nothing  but  eat.  Man  is  what  he 
eats  plus  the  other  things  that  are  organized  into  his  nature 
by  the  other  things  that  he  does.  If  we  understand  Feuer- 
bach to  mean  the  human  species,  as  distinct  from  the  lower 
orders  of  animals,  our  assent  is  still  qualified  in  the  same 
way,  but  in  a  lesser  degree.  If  we  understand  the  propo- 
sition as  referring  to  individual  men,  it  is  true,  of  course, 
only  if  we  credit  the  individual  specimen  first  with  all  the 
eating  that  all  his  ancestors  have  done,  and  then  with  all  their 
other  care  of  themselves,  with  all  the  air  they  have  breathed, 
and  with  all  the  work  or  rest  that  has  exhausted  or  conserved 
their  force.     Even  then  we  must  balance  the  one  hyperbole 


4i6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

with  others,  and  say,  for  instance,  that  '*  Man  is  what  he 
thinks,"  and  still  further,  "  Man  is  what  other  men  make 
him."^  These  latter  phases  of  the  case  are  not  now  in  point. 
Reserving  these  sides  of  human  conditions  for  consideration 
in  their  turn,  we  have  to  provide  in  this  part  of  our  analysis 
for  due  insistence  upon  the  inevitable  importance  of  the  physi- 
cal setting  in  which  even  the  spiritual  constituents  of  life 
have  their  place.  Like  the  warp  through  which  the  shuttle 
carries  the  threads  of  the  web,  these  physical  factors  form  the 
rude  tissue  which  is  in  turn  shot  through  and  through  by  the 
dependent  activities  in  every  department  of  individual  life  and 
of  the  social  process.^ 

We  are  but  dealing  with  the  cosmic  factor  a  little  more 
specifically  when  we  concentrate  attention  upon  men's  more 
immediate  physical  environment.  If  we  wish  to  approach 
close  to  the  precise  facts,  we  must  put  ourselves  under  the 
tuition  of  zoologist,  physiologist,  and  experimental  psycholo- 
gist. This  is  their  special  territory.  They  are  dealing  with 
elements  in  the  world  of  things,  and  particularly  with  mani- 
festations of  those  elements,  first,  in  the  animal  portion  of  the 
world  of  things,  and,  second,  in  the  animal  side  of  the  world 
of  people.  Our  present  purpose  is  not  to  invade  the  territory 
of  these  specialists,  but  to  indicate  the  direction  in  which  the 
problems  of  sociology  eventually  run  into  theirs. 

The  fact  which  we  indicate  at  this  point  is  that  popula- 

*  "  The  '  social  man  '  is  a  person  who  learns  to  judge  by  the  judgments  of 
society."    (Baldwin,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations,  p.  154.) 

°  That  this  is  strictly  commonplace  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  citations 
of  all  the  arguments  in  which  substantially  what  we  are  saying  is  emphasized, 
in  some  form  or  other,  would  require  mention  of  nearly  everything  that  has 
been  written  by  the  systematic  sociologists.  Spencer's  Synthetic  Philosophy, 
Fiske's  Cosmic  Philosophy,  and  Lotze's  Microcosmus  may  be  cited  as  typical  in 
giving  place  to  the  element  we  are  considering,  though  in  a  range  of  thought 
more  inclusive  than  sociology.  Ward,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  I, 
p.  132,  and  Outlines  of  Sociology,  chaps.  2*and  3,  and  Ratzenhofer,  Sociolo- 
gische  Erkenntniss,  sees.  8-1 1,  are  symptomatic  of  sociology  in  general  in  its 
apprehension  of  the  same  facts.  Kmerson  dr^ws  edifying  mysticism  from  the 
same  perception  in  his  essay  on  Perpetual  Forces. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  417 

tions  differ  from  each  other  in  consequence  of  differences  in 
the  geography,  topography,  and  cHmate  of  the  regions  which 
they  inhabit.  This  is  no  nineteenth-century  discovery. 
Hippocrates  seems  to  have  detected  it  five  centuries  before 
Christ;  but  the  twentieth  Christian  century  w'ill  doubtless 
long  have  been  ancient  history  before  many  men  learn  to 
take  full  account  of  the  time-worn  truth. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  greater  part  of  the  world's 
observations  in  this  connection  up  to  date  have  been  merely 
inaccurate  rhetorical  advertisements  of  facts  which  require 
more  precise  investigation.  For  our  present  purpose  these 
inexact  descriptions  are  sufficient.  We  are  laying  stress  upon 
the  fact  that  a  physical  environment  not  only  always  exists 
around  every  society,  but  that  it  always  affects  the  activity, 
character,  and  organizations  of  that  society.  No  one  can 
measure,  in  any  generally  valid  formulas,  the  force  of  this 
environment.  Our  present  point  is  that  it  has  force,  that  this 
force  is  incessant,  that  it  is  powerful,  that  it  is  a  factor  which 
may  never  be  ignored,  either  in  accounting  for  human  affairs 
in  the  past  or  in  planning  for  human  welfare  in  the  future. 

Although  we  may  find  more  precise  examination  of  the 
facts  in  more  recent  literature,  we  cannot  find  more  forcible 
general  statement,  and  perhaps  not  more  vivid  illustration, 
than  in  Buckle's  excursion  into  the  history  of  civilization. 
For  instance,  his  general  thesis  may  be  adopted  bodily  as  a 
perception  for  which  there  is  a  permanent  place  in  sociology : 

When  we  consider  the  incessant  contact  between  man  and  the  external 
world,  it  is  certain  that  there  must  be  an  intimate  connection  between 
human  actions  and  physical  laws ;  so  that,  if  phj'sical  science  has  not 
hitherto  been  brought  to  bear  upon  history,  the  reason  is  either  that  his- 
torians have  not  perceived  the  connection,  or  else  that,  having  perceived  it, 
they  have  been  destitute  of  the  knowledge  by  which  its  workings  can  be 
traced.  Hence  there  has  arisen  an  unnatural  separation  of  the  two  great 
departments  of  inquiry,  the  study  of  the  internal  and  that  of  the  external ; 
and,  although  in  the  present  state  of  European  literature  there  are  some 
unmistakable  symptoms  of  a  desire  to  break  down  this  artificial  barrier, 
still  it  must  be  admitted  that  as  yet  nothing  has  been  actually  accomplished 


4i8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

toward  effecting  so  great  an  end.  The  moralists,  the  theologians,  and  the 
metaphysicians  continue  to  prosecute  their  studies  without  much  respect 
for  what  they  deem  the  inferior  labors  of  scientific  men ;  whose  inquiries 
indeed  they  frequently  attack,  as  dangerous  to  the  interests  of  religion,  and 
as  inspiring  us  with  an  undue  confidence  in  the  resources  of  the  human 
understanding.  On  the  other  hand,  the  cultivators  of  physical  science, 
conscious  that  they  are  an  advancing  body,  are  naturally  proud  of  their 
own  success ;  and,  contrasting  their  discoveries  with  the  more  stationary 
position  of  their  opponents,  are  led  to  despise  pursuits,  the  barrenness  of 
which  has  now  become  notorious. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  historian  to  mediate  between  these  two  parties, 
and  reconcile  their  hostile  pretensions  by  showing  the  point  at  which  their 
respective  studies  ought  to  coalesce.  To  settle  the  terms  of  this  coalition 
will  be  to  fix  the  basis  of  all  history.  For,  since  history  deals  with  the 
actions  of  men,  and  since  their  actions  are  merely  the  product  of  a 
collision  between  internal  and  external  phenomena,  it  becomes  necessary  to 
examine  the  relative  importance  of  those  phenomena;  to  inquire  into  the 
extent  to  which  their  laws  are  known ;  and  to  ascertain  the  resources  for 
future  discovery  possessed  by  these  two  great  classes,  the  students  of  the 
mind  and  the  students  of  nature." 

Buckle's  second  chapter  is  still  worth  reading  for  its  illus- 
trations of  the  main  proposition.  All  these  illustrations  are  to 
be  taken  with  a  liberal  degree  of  reserve,  but  we  may  discount 
whatever  percentage  we  will  from  the  credit  given  to  physical 
influences,  and  the  fact  remains  that,  once  having  our  atten- 
tion called  to  the  matter,  we  can  never  again  dismiss  the  physi- 
cal environment  as  a  negligible  quantity  in  human  reactions. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  Buckle  purely  for  illustra- 
tive purposes.  He  is  not  cited  as  in  any  sense  authoritative 
or  exemplary,  except  as  he  gave  vigorous  expression  to  an 
element  that  must  enter  into  all  valid  sociology.  Nor  is  this 
recourse  to  a  certain  type  of  historical  generalization  a  tacit 
surrender  of  what  was  said  above,^^  and  a  sign  of  consent  to 
make  sociology  after  all  merely  a  philosophy  of  history.  On  the 
contrary,  even  if  we  had  reached  final  conclusions  in  the  region 
which  Buckle  occupies,  they  should  be  regarded  as  mere  pre- 
liminaries to  the  conclusions  which  we  want  to  reach  in  prac- 
tical sociology.     Tt  may  be  said,  in  passing,  that  these  general 

"Vol.  I,  chap.  I,  p.  25.  "Chap.  4,  pp.  54,  55,  ct  passim. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  419 

conceptions  of  the  relation  of  environment  to  men  have  been 
used,  and  at  the  same  time  have  been  made  more  specific,  in 
certain  recent  developments  of  economic  theory.  They  have 
been  developed  in  Loria's  Economic  Basis  of  Society}^  In  a 
certain  form  they  furnish  the  substance  of  Patten's  funda- 
mental economic  doctrine;  and  they  have  fashioned  the 
master-key  which  a  multitude  of  men  have  tried  to  apply  in 
dififerent  ways  to  unlock  the  social  mysteries. 

But  these  more  general  aspects  of  the  universal  environ- 
ment condition  are,  after  all,  merely  preliminaries  to  the  more 
particular  aspects  of  the  same  facts,  which  are  of  increasing 
interest  to  the  practical  sociologist  in  proportion  as  they  emerge 
in  the  details  of  the  everyday  life  of  living  men.  Whether  we 
ever  succeed  or  not  in  generalizing  the  historic  influence  of 
environment  upon  the  course  of  civilization,  we  know  enough 
about  it  to  be  without  excuse  if  we  neglect  the  influence  of 
environment  upon  ourselves  and  our  neighbors.  Hardly  a 
program  for  the  improvement  of  present  life  omits  today  the 
environment  element,  and  many  of  the  most  reasonable  pro- 
grams make  environment  the  chief  practical  consideration. 
From  the  ideals  of  art  leagues,  that  would  make  our  cities 
externally  beautiful,  to  the  plans  of  criminologists,  who  would 
furnish  reformatory  methods  and  post-reformatory  opportuni- 
ties favorable  to  habits  of  industry,  we  are  learning  to  be 
suspicious  of  all  theories  of  progress  which  do  not  rest  hard 
upon  readjustment  of  external  surroundings.  This  is  the 
point  of  departure  of  our  modern  charities,  our  social- 
settlement  policies,  our  educational  theories,  our  devices  for 
applying  religion. 

People  who  are  zealous  for  the  prestige  of  religion  are 
apt  to  misunderstand  and  misrepresent  this  calculation  upon 
the  influence  of  the  external.  At  the  International  Con- 
gregational Conference  in  Boston  in  1899  some  of  the  Eng- 

"  First  German  edition,  Jena,  1895;  French  translation  of  second  edition, 
Paris,  1900.  No  more  significant  recent  work  can  be  named  in  this  field  than 
that  of  Ammon,  Die  Gesellschaftsordnung  und  ihre  natiirlichen  Grundlagen. 


420 )  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 


lish  theologians  are  reported  to  have  sneered  at  Professor 
Graham  Taylor's  plea  for  more  attention  to  the  present 
welfare  of  laborers,  as  an  attempt  to  substitute  "  physi- 
cal evolution "  for  improvement  of  men  from  within.  This 
was  probably  the  utterance  of  ignorance  more  than  of  cant. 
It  must  be  admitted,  of  course,  that  there  has  been  a  vast 
amount  of  unwise  glorification  of  improved  environment,  as 
though  it  were  an  end  instead  of  chiefly  a  means,  and  as 
though  it  were  the  sole  and  sufficient  means  instead  of  a  con- 
dition which  affords  favorable  scope  for  more  intimate  means. 
Discounting  these  familiar  and  natural  exaggerations,  there 
remains  for  sane  and  balanced  social  theory  the  knowledge  that 
the  surroundings  may  turn  the  scale  for  individuals  and 
groups  from  advancement  to  retrogression,  or  vice  versa. 
Whether  men  in  modern  societies,  in  country  or  city,  shall  be 
making  way  in  the  essentials  of  manhood,  and  in  social  inte- 
gration, or  shall  be  personally  and  socially  deteriorating,  may 
be  determined  by  the  housing,  and  paving,  and  drainage,  and 
physical  conditions  of  labor,  and  types  of  recreation,  which 
make  up  the  setting  of  their  lives.  These  elements  then  are 
real  terms  in  the  political  and  social  and  religious  problems  of 
enlightened  societies. 

In  short,  we  may  say  that  any  competent  theory  of  human 
associations  must  be  a  theory  of  something  more  than  human 
associations.  It  must  be  able  to  connect  itself  with  the  facts 
antecedent  to  human  association,  both  in  time  and  in  thought. 
It  must  square  with  knowledge  about  those  physical  and  vital 
relationships  upon  which  the  later  social  phenomena  rest.  In 
a  word,  some  of  the  social  forces  are  not  social  at  all.  The 
paradox  merely  has  in  view  the  antecedent  conditions,  physical 
and  vital,  which  fix  the  limits  and  influence  the  direction  of 
sentient  and  social  action,  while  they  are  themselves  phe- 
nomena neither  of  consciousness  nor  of  association.  A  com- 
plete theory  of  human  association  must  accordingly  include  a 
full  account  of  all  physical  and  vital  forces  in  their  action  upon 
the  conditions  and  incidents  of  association. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  421 

It  has  been  a  part  both  of  the  strength  and  of  the  weakness 
of  social  science  up  to  date  that  recognition  of  this  relation 
has  been  distinct.  The  good  results  of  the  perception  have 
been  shown  in  restraint  upon  those  social  theorizings  which 
ignored  physical  limitations.  The  evil  results  have  appeared 
among  sociologists  who  have  lively  convictions  of  the  impor- 
tance of  physical  science,  but  insufficient  acquaintance  with 
its  contents.  Many  of  these  have  tacked  upon  sociology  their 
extemporized  applications  of  supposed  scientific  conclusions. 
The  sequel  has  been  great  prejudice  and  scandal  of  sociology 
among  persons  competent  to  criticise  the  assumptions  so  used. 
In  the  present  state  of  knowledge  it  is  safest  for  those  sociolo- 
gists who  approach  the  subject  from  the  humanities  side  to 
let  this  border  territory  severely  alone.  The  best  work  will 
be  done  there  at  present  either  by  men  whose  sociological 
interest  is  hardly  known  to  themselves,  or  by  sociologists  who 
have  approached  the  problems  of  association  from  the  physical 
side.  There  are  certain  uses  in  carrying  biological  specula- 
tions over  into  the  field  of  human  associations,  just  as  there 
are  certain  uses  in  carrying  psychological  speculations  back 
into  the  field  of  biology.  The  misuse  of  this  method  appears 
when  sociologists  duplicate  the  practice  of  those  thrifty  New 
England  fishermen  who  used  to  send  their  young  herring 
across  the  ocean  and  bring  them  back  as  French  sardines. 
The  biological  generalizations  which  sociologists  are  apt  to 
use  are  the  catch  of  speculative  philosophers,  who  have 
exported  them  into  biology,  and  then  have  imported  them 
into  sociology  as  genuine  scientific  data. 

For  instance,  versions  of  supposed  laws  of  heredity,  envi- 
ronment, natural  selection,  have  done  service  in  sociological 
theory,  which  competent  biologists  have  never  sanctioned, 
except  as  hypotheses.  They  cannot  be  validly  used  in  any 
other  way  in  sociology.  It  is  therefore  safer,  and  more 
1  economical  in  the  end,  for  sociologists  to  employ  such  hypo- 
thetical scientific  data  as  little  as  possible,  and  to  confine  them- 
selves to  territory  in  which  they  may  be  more  sure  of  their 


422  GENER.\L  SOCIOLOGY 

ground.  The  sociologist  must  know  where  his  problems 
reduce  to  physical  problems,  but  he  must  know  that  he  is  not, 
as  a  sociologist,  equipped  for  their  solution. 

In  the  course  of  ethical  argument/^  and  frequently  else- 
where, Spencer  has  adverted  to  the  impotence  of  the  idea  of 
causation  in  most  minds.  His  thought  runs  back  to  the  prem- 
ises now  under  consideration.  Knowledge  of  social  condi- 
tions and  movements  involves  intelligence  about  the  physical 
setting  in  which  associations  occur,  and  of  the  physical  forces 
of  which  human  associations  are  in  part  the  product.  In 
practice  this  amounts  to  a  demand  that  the  sociologist  shall 
hold  himself  bound  to  inquire  at  every  step  in  sociological 
theory :  Do  my  assumptions  about  human  associations  pay 
proper  regard  to  the  most  and  the  best  that  is  knozvn  about 
physical  law?  This  means  that  every  discovery  which  materi- 
ally modified  our  conceptions  of  the  physical  universe  might 
necessitate  revision  of  the  most  orthodox  sociology.  It  means 
also  that  sociological  theories  which  depend  in  any  intimate 
way  upon  conceptions  of  physical  relationships  are  answerable 
in  the  first  instance  to  physical  science  for  the  validity  of  their 
premises. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  sociology  is  likely  to  suffer  long 
from  assumptions  of  pseudo-science.  Sociologists  are  no 
more  immune  than  other  laymen  against  popular  scientific 
error.  They  are  no  more  sure  than  other  laymen  to  know  the 
limits  of  scientific  authority.  Hence  all  sociological  theory 
that  is  deduced  from  physical  premises  is  suspicious  until 
higher  authority  than  that  of  the  sociologists  has  passed  upon 
the  assumed  scientific  data. 

A  typical  schedule  of  physical  laws  as  rendered  by  a  socio- 
logical  philosopher   is  that   of   Gumplowicz.^*     As   a   literal 

"  E.  g.,  Principles  of  Ethics,  Book  I,  chap.  4,  et  passim. 

"  Grundriss  dcr  Sociologie,  first  edition,  pp.  62-70,  and  American  transla- 
tion, pp.  74-82.  The  generalizations  are:  (o)  the  law  of  causation;  (6)  the 
law  of  development;  (c)  regularity  of  development:  (rf)  the  law  of  periodi- 
city: (e)  the  law  of  complexity;  (/)  reciprocal  action  of  heterogeneous  ele- 
ments; (g)  adaptation  to  an  obvious  end;  (/i)  identity  of  forces;  («)  simi- 
larity of  events  ;    (;)  law  of  parallelism. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  SOCIETY  423 

account  of  physical  reality  the  schedule  is  useless,  yet  it  may 
serve  as  a  general  description  of  certain  obvious  aspects  of 
natural  law.  English-speaking  sociologists  who  have  no  severe 
training  in  the  rudiments  of  physical  science,  and  who  are 
not  in  close  touch  with  competent  scientific  authorities,  are 
likely  for  a  long  time  to  take  their  bearings  in  the  physical 
world  from  Herbert  Spencer.  Whether  we  at  last  consign 
Spencer's  "  first  principles  "  to  the  realm  of  poetry,  or  accept 
them  as  science,  they  are  certain  to  furnish  to  a  considerable 
extent  the  cosmic  presumptions  with  which  the  sociologists 
will  work  for  some  time  to  come.^^  The  point  to  be  empha- 
sized is  that  the  sociologists,  though  rarely  physical  scien- 
tists, are  dealing  with  a  subject-matter  which  is  in  part  that 
of  physical  science.  They  are  sure  to  carry  preconceptions  of 
the  physical  relations  involved  into  their  descriptions  and  inter- 
pretations of  association.  Progress  toward  authoritative 
sociology  must  consequently  involve  incessant  submission  of 
crude  physical  conceptions  to  competent  scientific  review,  and 
consequent  reorganization  of  sociological  theory,  whenever 
it  rests  upon  untenable  scientific  assumptions. 

The  perception  that  men  are  dependent  upon  physical 
nature  is  so  obvious  that  it  has  often  been  impossible  to  break 
away  from  the  force  of  its  implications  sufficiently  to  see  that 
any  other  factor  is  concerned  in  human  life.  We  have  had 
materialistic  interpretations  of  life  without  number,  from  some 
of  the  pre-Platonists  to  living  writers.  The  fact  which  all  these 
philosophies  have  overworked  is  that  every  external  act,  and 
every  subjective  emotion,  which  occurs  in  the  case  of  any  per- 
son, has  the  whole  mass  of  physical  surroundings  and  ante- 
cedents as  its  conditions.  One  does  not  utter  a  sentiment,  or 
compose  a  song,  or  offer  a  prayer,  or  feel  an  emotion,  without 

"Viz.:  (a)  the  indestructibility  of  matter;  (b)  the  continuity  of  motion; 
(c)  the  persistence  of  force;  (a)  the  persistence  of  relations  among  forces; 
(e)  the  transformation  and  equivalence  of  forces;  (/)  the  rhythm  of  motion; 
(g)  evolution;  (h)  the  instability  of  the  homogeneous;  (i)  the  multiplication 
of  effects;  (/)  segregation;  {k)  equilibration;  (/)  dissolution.  (First  Prin- 
ciples, Table  of  Contents.) 


424  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

being  moved  to  the  same,  in  some  degree  or  sort,  by  the  soil, 
and  chmate,  and  technical  processes,  and  institutional  arrange- 
ments which  constitute  the  vehicle  of  one's  life.  But  the  fact 
that  the  same  farm  produces  Websters  whom  Americans  never 
knew  and  the  Webster  whom  Americans  will  never  forget, 
proves  that  the  materialistic  interpretation  of  life  lacks  pre- 
cision. The  physical  environment  is  always  present,  but  it  is 
not  all  that  is  present.  In  considering  any  social  problem  we 
must  always  ask :  How  much  does  the  physical  environment 
have  to  do  with  the  case?  The  answer  will  in  some  instances 
be  a  negligible  quantity.  In  others  it  will  furnish  the  only 
clue  to  the  situation,  as  distinguished  from  similar  situations 
that  turn  out  differently  under  other  physical  conditions. 

For  instance,  the  chief  reason  why  Germany  cherishes  a 
colonial  policy  today,  and  why  the  United  States  merely  toler- 
ates a  provisional  colonial  policy,  is  the  physical  difference 
between  German  over-population  and  American  under- 
population.  On  the  other  hand,  the  reason  why  Germany 
clings  to  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  while  America  abhors 
it,  is  so  very  remotely  connected  with  physical  conditions  that 
it  strains  language  and  ideas  to  give  the  physical  factor  in  the 
case  any  weight  at  all.  Whether  we  are  dealing  with  per- 
centages of  individual  cases  of  given  types  in  a  population,  or 
with  types  of  purely  social  organization  on  a  large  scale,  the 
sociological  program  must  always  be  to  give  the  physical  fac- 
tor precisely  the  value  which  it  has  —  no  more,  no  less,  neither 
minimized  nor  exaggerated  by  any  speculative  assumptions. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

INTERESTS' 

Nature  —  i.  e.^  the  physical  surroundings  in  which  men 
come  into  existence  and  develop  their  endowment  —  is  ana- 
lyzed for  us  by  the  physical  sciences.  We  do  not  know  all  its 
secrets,  but  in  studying  the  social  process  we  have  to  start 
with  such  knowledge  of  nature  as  the  physical  sciences  have 
gained,  and  we  have  to  search  for  similar  knowledge  of  the 
human  factor.  Men  have  been  analyzed  much  less  success- 
fully than  nature.  During  the  past  generation,  the  conception 
of  "  the  atom "  has  been  of  enormous  use  in  physical  dis- 
covery. Although  no  one  has  ever  seen  an  atom,  the  suppo- 
sition that  there  are  ultimate  particles  of  matter  in  which  the 
"  promise  and  potency  "  of  all  physical  properties  and  actions 
reside,  has  served  as  a  means  of  investigation  during  the  most 
intensive  period  of  research  in  the  history  of  thought.  With- 
out the  hypothesis  of  the  atom,  physics  and  chemistry,  and  in 
a  secondary  sense  biology,  would  have  lacked  chart  and  com- 
pass upon  their  voyages  of  exploration.  Although  the  notion 
of  the  atom  is  rapidly  changing,  and  the  tendency  of  physical 
science  is  to  construe  physical  facts  in  terms  of  motion  rather 
than  of  the  traditional  atom,  it  is  probably  as  needless  as  it 
is  useless  for  us  to  concern  ourselves  as  laymen  W'ith  this 
refinement.  Although  we  cannot  avoid  speaking  of  the  small- 
est parts  into  which  matter  can  be  divided,  and  although  we 
cannot  imagine,  on  the  other  hand,  how  any  portions  of  matter 
can  exist  and  not  be  divisible  into  parts,  we  are  probably  quite 
as  incapable  of  saving  ourselves"  from  paradox  by  resort  to  the 
vortex  hypothesis  in  any  form.  That  is,  these  subtleties  are 
too  wonderful  for  most  minds.  Without  pushing  analysis  too 
far,  and  without  resting  any  theory  upon  analogy  with  the 

^  Cf.  chaps.  14  and  15. 

42s 


426  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

atom  of  physical  theory,  it  is  necessary  to  find  some  starting- 
place  from  which  to  trace  up  the  composition  of  sentient 
beings,  just  as  the  physicists  assumed  that  they  found 
their  starting-place  in  the  atom.  The  notion  of  interests  is 
accordingly  serving  the  same  purpose  in  sociology  which  the 
notion  of  atoms  has  served  in  physical  science.  Interests  are 
the  stuff  that  men  are  made  of.  More  accurately  expressed, 
the  last  elements  to  which  we  can  reduce  the  actions  of  human 
beings  are  units  which  we  may  conveniently  name  "  inter- 
ests." It  is  merely  inverting  the  form  of  expression  to  say : 
Interests  are  the  simplest  modes  of  motion  which  we  can  trace 
in  the  conduct  of  human  beings. 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  human  beings  contain  one  group 
of  interests  which  are  generically  identical  with  the  factors  that 
compose  plants  and  animals.  They  are  those  modes  of  motion 
which  follow  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry  and  biology. 
The  sociologist  is  not  accountable  for  a  metaphysics  of  those 
motions.  They  exist  in  trees  and  fishes  and  birds  and  quadru- 
peds and  men  alike.  They  are  movements  that  exhibit  the 
different  forms  of  vital  energy.  These  forces  that  work 
together  in  building  living  organisms  are  no  other  in  men  than 
in  the  lower  organisms.  These  forces  are  incessantly  display- 
ing themselves  in  movements  that  arrive  at  certain  similar 
types  of  result.  Viz. :  There  is  the  building  of  living 
tissue.  There  is  the  growth  and  development  of  this  tissue 
till  it  detaches  itself  from  the  parent  stock  and  leads  an  inde- 
pendent life.  There  is.  in  turn,  the  parental  action  of  this 
organism  in  giving  life  to  other  organisms  like  itself.  All 
that  goes  forward  in  living  organisms  may  be  conceived  as  the 
working  of  a  complex  group  of  energies  which  we  may  call  the 
health  interest.  In  the  form  of  a  definition,  we  may  gener- 
alize as  follows:  The  health  interest  is  that  group  of  motions 
which  normally  build  and  7<'<)rk  the  bodily  organism.  That 
interest  has  one  specific  content  in  a  clover  plant,  another  in 
an  oak  tree,  another  in  an  insect,  another  in  a  man.  In  each 
case,   however,    it   is   an    energetic   pushing    forward   toward 


INTERESTS  427 

expression  of  power  which  proves  to  have  different  limits  in 
the  different  types;  but  these  puttings  forth  of  power,  so  far 
as  they  go,  consist  of  motions  which  all  belong  in  one  and  the 
same  group.  Physical,  chemical,  and  vital  energies,  vari- 
ously mixed,  attain  to  the  life  of  the  plant  in  one  instance,  of 
the  insect  in  another,  of  the  man  in  another.  In  short,  the 
basal  interest  in  every  man  is  the  impulse  of  all  the  physical 
energy  deposited  in  his  organism  to  work  itself  out  to  the 
limit.  This  is  what  we  mean  by  the  health  interest.  It  is  the 
impulsion  and  the  propulsion  of  the  frankly  material  in  our 
composition.  Before  referring  to  other  interests,  we  may  illus- 
trate in  this  connection  what  was  said  a  little  earlier  about  all 
men  being  variations  of  the  same  elemental  factors. 

Here  is  a  black  man  committing  a  fiendish  crime,  and 
here  are  white  men  dragging  him  to  a  fiendish  expiation,  and 
here  is  a  saintly  man  throwing  the  whole  force  of  his  life  into 
horror-stricken  protest  against  the  inhumanity  of  both.  Now, 
the  point  is  that,  in  the  first  instance,  the  criminal,  the  avenger, 
and  the  saint  are  storage  batteries  of  one  and  the  same  kind 
of  physical  energy.  The  vital  processes  of  the  one  are  pre- 
cisely similar  to  those  of  the  other.  The  same  elementary 
physical  motions  occur  in  the  life  of  each.  It  might  even 
happen  that  precisely  the  same  quantity  of  physical  energy 
resided  in  each  of  the  three.  The  criminal  does  not  do  some- 
thing to  the  like  of  which  nothing  in  the  avenger  or  in  the 
saint  urges.  On  the  contrary,  the  rudimentary  energies  in  the 
average  man  move  in  the  same  direction  as  those  that  betray 
themselves  in  the  criminal.  The  health  interest  is  a  term  in 
the  personal  equation  of  each ;  but  something  in  the  avenger 
and  in  the  saint  inhibits  the  health  interest  from  monopoly  of 
the  man  in  the  two  latter  cases,  while  without  such  inhibition 
it  rages  to  madness  in  the  former.  The  saint  is  not  a  unit  that 
contains  no  factor  in  common  with  the  fiend.  On  the  con- 
trary, saint  and  fiend  are  terms  which  alike  cover  a  certain 
quantity  and  quality  of  the  brute.  That  the  fiend  is  not  a 
saint,  and  the  saint  is  not  a  fiend,  is  not  because  the  make-up 


428  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  either  utterly  lacks  components  of  the  other  character.  It 
is  because  that  which  goes  to  make  the  fiend  is,  in  the  one 
case,  not  organized  into  other  interests  which  modify  its  work- 
ings; in  the  other  case  other  interests  have  so  asserted  them- 
selves that  the  health  interest  has  been  reduced  to  a  completely 
subordinate  role. 

In  the  lowest  condition  in  which  we  find  human  beings, 
they  present  little  to  attract  the  attention  of  any  scientific 
observer  except  the  zoologist.  They  are  merely  specimens  of 
a  higher  order  of  animal.  The  differences  which  the  com- 
parative anatomist  makes  out  are  merely  more  complex  details 
in  the  same  series  which  he  traces  from  the  lowest  orders  in 
the  animal  kingdom.  The  horde  of  savage  men  is  simply  a 
mass  of  practically  identical  specimens  of  a  species,  just  like 
a  shoal  of  fish  or  a  herd  of  buffaloes.  That  is,  so  long  as  the 
health  interest  alone  is  in  working  force,  there  is  no  such  fact 
present  as  a  human  individual.  The  specimens  in  the  aggre- 
gation are  not  individualized.  Each  presents  the  same  dead 
level  of  characteristics  that  appear  in  all  the  rest.  So  far 
nothing  but  the  animal  kingdom  is  in  sight.  The  properly 
human  stage  in  world-evolution  begins  when  the  differentia- 
tion of  other  interests  in  some  of  the  specimens  of  the  genus 
homo  produces  human  individuals.  In  other  words,  the  indi- 
vidual who  builds  human  society,  as  distinguished  from  packs 
of  animals,  is  the  human  animal  varied  by  the  appearance  and 
incessant  modification  of  other  tlian  the  health  interest.  In 
order  to  an  adequate  theory  of  the  human  process,  therefore, 
there  is  need  of  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  human  indi- 
vidual, the  ultimate  molecular  unit  carrying  on  the  process. 
This  is  to  be  insisted  upon  for  its  own  sake,  but  also  inci- 
dentally for  the  reason  that  certain  critics  of  present  tend- 
encies in  sociology  insist  that  the  sociologists  are  entirely 
on  the  wrong  track,  since  they  start  by  leaving  individuals  out 
of  the  account.^  These  critics  assert  that  the  sociologist  cares 
only  al)Out  societies,  but  that  the  things  which  he  thinks  he 

'  Cf.  note  below,  p.  472. 


INTERESTS  429 

knows  about  societies  are  necessarily  wrong,  because  we  can- 
not know  societies  without  understanding  the  persons  who 
compose  the  societies. 

The  criticism  seriously  misinterprets  the  sociologists. 
Instead  of  ignoring  the  individual,  nobody  has  seen  more 
clearly  than  the  sociologists  that  we  must  stop  taking  a  ficti- 
tious individual  for  granted,  or  still  worse,  assuming  that  it 
is  unnecessary  to  take  a  real  individual  into  the  account  at 
all.  Nobody  has  more  strenuously  insisted  that  we  must 
analyze  human  personality  to  the  utmost  limit  in  order  to 
posit  the  real  actor  in  association.  The  sociologists  have  there- 
fore quite  as  often  erred  in  the  direction  opposite  to  that 
alleged  by  these  critics.  They  have  invaded  psychological  and 
pedagogical  territory,  and  usually  without  equipment  to  do 
respectable  work.  They  have  been  tempted  to  this  sort  of 
foray  by  encountering  in  their  own  proper  work  the  need  of 
more  knowledge  of  the  individual  than  is  available.  It  is  true 
the  sociologists  think  that,  when  division  of  labor  is  fully 
organized,  study  of  the  individual,  as  such,  will  fall  to  others. 
But  the  social  fact  and  the  social  process  will  never  be  under- 
stood till  we  have  better  knowledge  of  the  individual  element 
in  the  fact  and  the  process.^  Professor  Baldwin  spoke  for 
sociology  as  truly  as  for  psychology  when  he  said : 

It  is  the  first  requirement  of  a  theory  of  society  that  it  shall  have 
adequate  views  of  the  progress  of  the  social  whole,  which  shall  be  con- 
sistent with  the  psychology  of  the  individual's  personal  growth.  It  is  this 
requirement,  I  think,  which  has  kept  the  science  of  society  so  long  in  its 
infancy;  or,  at  least,  this  in  part.  Psychologists  have  not  had  sufficient 
genetic  theory  to  use  on  their  side;  and  what  theory  they  had  seemed  to 
forbid  any  attempt  to  interpret  social  progress  in  its  categories.  As  soon 
as  we  come  to  see,  however,  that  the  growth  of  the  individual  does  not 
forbid  this  individual's  taking  part  in  the  larger  social  movement  as  well, 
and,  moreover,  reach  the  view  that  in  his  growth  he  is  at  once  also  grow- 
ing into  the  social  whole,  and  in  so  far  aiding  its  further  evolution  —  then 
we  seem  to  have  found  a  bridge  on  which  it  is  safe  to  travel,  and  from 
which  we  can  get  vistas  of  the  country  on  both  sides.* 

*This  subject  is  continued  at  the  beginning  of  chap.  32. 

*  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations,  p.  81. 


430  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

In  this  connection  we  may  adopt  another  remark  of  Pro- 
fessor Baldwin : 

....  one  of  the  historical  conceptions  of  man  is,  in  its  social  aspects, 
mistaken.  Man  is  not  a  person  who  stands  up  in  his  isolated  majesty, 
meanness,  passion,  or  humility,  and  sees,  hits,  worships,  fights,  or  over- 
comes another  man,  who  does  the  opposite  things  to  him,  each  preserving 
his  isolated  majesty,  meanness,  passion,  humility,  all  the  while,  so  that  he 
can  be  considered  a  "  unit "  for  the  compounding  processes  of  social 
speculation.  On  the  contrary,  a  man  is  a  social  outcome  rather  than  a 
social  unit.  He  is  always,  in  his  greatest  part,  also  someone  else.  Social 
acts  of  his  —  that  is,  acts  which  may  not  prove  anti-social  —  are  his 
because  they  are  society's  first ;  otherwise  he  would  not  have  learned  them 
nor  have  had  any  tendency  to  do  them.  Ever>'thing  that  he  learns  is 
copied,  reproduced,  assimilated  from  his  fellows ;  and  what  all  of  them, 
including  him  —  all  the  fellows,  the  socii  —  do  and  think,  they  do  and  think 
because  they  have  each  been  through  the  same  course  of  copying,  repro- 
ducing, assimilating  that  he  has.  When  he  acts  quite  privately,  it  is  always 
with  a  boomerang  in  his  hand;  and  every  use  he  makes  of  his  weapon 
leaves  its  indelible  impression  both  upon  the  other  and  upon  him. 

It  is  on  such  truths  as  these,  which  recent  writers  have  been  bringing 
to  light,5  that  the  philosophy  of  society  must  be  gradually  built  up.  Only 
the  neglect  of  such  facts  can  account  for  the  present  state  of  social  dis- 
cussion. Once  let  it  be  our  philosophical  conviction,  drawn  from  the  more 
general  results  of  psychology  and  anthropology,  that  man  is  not  two,  an 
ego  and  an  alter,  each  in  active  and  chronic  protest  against  a  third  great 
thing,  society;  once  dispel  this  hideous  un-fact,  and  with  it  the  remedies 
found  by  the  egoists,  back  all  the  way  from  the  Spencers  to  the  Hobbeses 
and  the  Comtes  —  and  I  submit  the  main  barrier  to  the  successful  under- 
standing of  society  is  removed." 

At  the  same  time,  there  should  be  no  difficulty  in  getting 
it  understood  that,  while  biology  and  psychology  have  to  do 
with  the  individual  when  he  is  in  the  making,  sociology  wants 
to  start  with  him  as  the  finished  product.  There  is  a  certain 
impossible  antinomy  about  this,  to  be  sure;  for  our  funda- 
mental conception  is  that  the  individual  and  his  associations 
are  constantly  in  the  reciprocal  making  by  each  other.^   Never- 

'  E.  g.,  Stephen,  S.  Alexander,  HofTtling,  Tarde.  Wc  show  in  Part  VII 
that  our  emphasis  at  this  point  by  no  means  commits  us  to  acceptance  of 
"  the  imitation  theory." 

•  Op.  cit.,  p.  87.  '  Cf.  chap.  32. 


INTERESTS  431 

theless,  there  are  certain  constant  aspects  of  the  individual 
which  furnish  known  terms  for  sociology.  They  are  aspects 
which  present  their  own  problems  to  physiology  and  psy- 
chology, on  the  one  hand,  and  to  sociology,  on  the  other;  but 
in  themselves  they  must  be  assumed  at  the  beginning  of  socio- 
logical inquiry. 

To  the  psychologist  the  individual  is  interesting  primarily 
as  a  center  of  knowing,  feeling,  and  willing.  To  the  sociolo- 
gist the  individual  begins  to  be  interesting  when  he  is  thought 
as  knowing,  feeling,  and  willing  something.  In  so  far  as  a 
mere  trick  of  emphasis  may  serve  to  distinguish  problems, 
this  ictus  indicates  the  sociological  starting-point.  The  indi- 
vidual given  in  experience  is  thought  to  the  point  at  which  he 
is  available  for  sociological  assumption,  when  he  is  recognized 
as  a  center  of  activities  which  make  for  something  outside  of 
the  psychical  series  in  which  volition  is  a  term.  These  activi- 
ties must  be  referred  primarily  to  desires,  but  the  desires 
themselves  may  be  further  referred  to  certain  universal  inter- 
ests. In  this  character  the  individual  becomes  one  of  the 
known  or  assumed  terms  of  sociology.  The  individual  as  a 
center  of  active  interests  may  be  thought  both  as  the  lowest 
term  in  the  social  equation  and  as  a  composite  term  whose 
factors  must  be  understood.  These  factors  are  either  the 
more  evident  desires,  or  the  more  remote  interests  which  the 
individual's  desires  in  some  way  represent.  At  the  same  time, 
we  must  repeat  the  admission  that  these  assumed  interests 
are  like  the  atom  of  physics.  They  are  the  metaphysical 
recourse  of  our  minds  in  accounting  for  concrete  facts.  We 
have  never  seen  or  touched  them.  They  are  the  hypothetical 
substratum  of  those  regularities  of  conduct  which  the  activi- 
ties of  individuals  display. 

In  this  connection  the  term  "  interest "  is  to  be  under- 
stood, not  in  the  psychological,  but  in  a  teleological  sense.^ 

*  Here  again  we  have  a  term  which  has  insensibly  grown  into  force  in 
sociology,  and  it  would  require  long  search  to  trace  its  history.  It  may  be 
found    almost    indiscriminately    among    the    sociologists.      Its    use    sometimes 


432  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

The  sense  in  which  we  use  the  term  is  antecedent  to  that 
which  seems  to  be  predominantly  in  Professor  Baldwin's  mind 
in  the  following  passages : 

The  very  concept  of  interests,  when  one  considers  it  with  reference 
to  himself,  necessarily  involves  others,  therefore,  on  very  much  the  same 
footing  as  oneself.  One's  interests,  the  things  he  wants  in  life,  are  the 
things  which,  by  the  very  same  thought,  he  allows  others  also  the  right  to 
want;  and  if  he  insists  upon  the  gratification  of  his  own  wants  at  the 
expense  of  the  legitimate  wants  of  the  "  other,"  then  he  in  so  far  does 
violence  to  his  sympathies  and  to  his  sense  of  justice.  And  this  in  turn 
must  impair  his  satisfaction.  For  the  very  gratification  of  himself  thus 
secured  must,  if  it  be  accompanied  with  any  reflection  at  all,  involve  the 
sense  of  the  "  other's  "  gratification  also ;  and  since  this  conflicts  with  the 
fact,  a  degree  of  discomfort  must  normally  arise  in  the  mind,  varying  with 
the  development  which  the  self  has  attained  in  the  dialectical  process 
described  above 

On  the  one  hand,  we  can  get  no  doctrine  of  society  but  by  getting  the 
psychology  of  the  socius  with  all  his  natural  history ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  can  get  no  true  view  of  the  socius  without  describing  the  social 
conditions  under  which  he  normally  lives,  with  the  history  of  their  action 
and  reaction  upon  him.  Or,  to  put  the  outcome  in  terms  of  the  restriction 
which  we  have  imposed  upon  ourselves  —  the  only  way  to  get  a  solid  basis 
for  social  theory  based  upon  human  want  or  desire,  is  to  work  out  first  a 
descriptive  and  genetic  psychology  of  desire  in  its  social  aspects;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  only  way  to  get  an  adequate  psychological  view  of 
the  rise  and  development  of  desire  in  its  social  aspects  is  by  a  patient  tra- 
cing of  the  conditions  of  social  environment  in  which  the  child  and  the  race 
have  lived  and  which  they  have  grown  up  to  reflect." 

The  somewhat  different  concept  of  this  element  "inter- 
est" which  we  posit  may  be  indicated  at  first  with  the  least 
possible  technicality.  We  may  start  with  the  familiar  popular 
expressions,  "the  farming  interest,"  "the  railroad  interest," 
"the  packing  interest,"  "the  milling  interest,"  etc.,  etc. 
Everyone  knows  what  the  expressions  mean.  Our  use  of  the 
term  "  interest "  is  not  co-ordinate  with  these,  but  it  may  be 
approached  by  means  of  them.     All  the  "  interests  "  that  are 

leaves  the  impression  that  the  ■author  attaches  to  it  very  little  importance.     In 
other  cases   it  seems  to  be  cardinal.      No   writer   has   made   more   of   it  than 
Ratzenhofer,  Sociologische  Erhcnntuiss,  chap.  2,  ct  passim. 
'Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations,  pp.  15,  16,  21,  22. 


INTERESTS  433 

struggling  for  recognition  in  business  and  in  politics  are 
highly  composite.  The  owner  of  a  flourmill,  for  example,  is  a 
man  before  he  is  a  miller.  He  becomes  a  miller  at  last  because 
he  is  a  man;  i.  e.,  because  he  has  interests  —  in  a  deeper  sense 
than  that  of  the  popular  expressions  —  which  impel  him  to  act 
in  order  to  gain  satisfactions.  The  clue  to  all  social  activity 
is  in  this  fact  of  individual  interests.  Every  act  that  every 
man  performs  is  to  be  traced  back  to  an  interest.  We  eat 
because  there  is  a  desire  for  food;  but  the  desire  is  set  in 
motion  by  a  bodily  interest  in  replacing  exhausted  force.  We 
sleep  because  w^e  are  tired;  but  the  weariness  is  a  function  of 
the  bodily  interest  in  rebuilding  used-up  tissue.  We  play 
because  there  is  a  bodily  interest  in  use  of  the  muscles.  We 
study  because  there  is  a  mental  interest  in  satisfying  curiosity. 
We  mingle  with  our  fellow-men  because  there  is  a  mental 
interest  in  matching  our  personality  against  that  of  others. 
We  go  to  market  to  supply  an  economic  interest,  and  to  war 
because  of  some  social  interest  of  whatever  mixed  or  simple 
form. 

With  this  introduction,  we  may  venture  an  extremely 
abstract  definition  of  our  concept  "  interest."  In  general, 
an  interest  is  an  unsatisfied  capacity,  corresponding  to  an 
unrealised  condition,  and  it  is  predisposition  to  such  rearrange- 
ment as  would  tend  to  rcaliizc  the  indicated  condition}^  Human 
needs  and  human  wants  are  incidents  in  the  series  of  events 
between  the  latent  existence  of  human  interests  and  the 
achievement  of  partial  satisfaction.  Human  interests,  then, 
are  the  ultimate  terms  of  calculation  in  sociology.  The  zvhole 
life-process,  so  far  as  zve  knozv  it,  whether  viezved  in  its  indi- 

^^  Professor  Dewey's  formula  is :  "  Interest  is  iinptilse  functioning  with 
reference  to  self-realization."  Our  formula  attempts  to  express  a  conception 
of  something  back  of  consciousness,  and  operating  more  generally  than  in 
facts  of  consciousness.  Whether  this  philosophical  conceit  is  defensible  or 
not,  is  unessential  for  the  remainder  of  our  analysis.  All  that  is  strictly 
necessary  for  sociology  proper  is  the  later  analysis,  which  might  be  performed 
in  terms  of  "  interest,"  either  in  our  own  or  in  the  psychological  sense,  or  of 
"  desires  "  in  a  more  empirical  sense.  Indeed,  the  latter  is  the  method  to  be 
applied  in  the  following  discussion. 


434  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

victual  or  in  its  social  phase,  is  at  last  the  process  of  develop- 
ing, adjusting,  and  satisfyijig  interests}^ 

No  single  term  is  of  more  constant  use  in  recent  sociology 
than  this  term  "  interests."  We  use  it  in  the  plural  partly  for 
the  sake  of  distinguishing  it  from  the  same  term  in  the  sense 
which  has  become  so  familiar  in  modern  pedagogy.  The  two 
uses  of  the  term  are  closely  related,  but  they  are  not  precisely 
identical.  The  pedagogical  emphasis  is  rather  on  the  volun- 
tary attitude  toward  a  possible  object  of  attention.  The 
sociological  emphasis  is  on  attributes  of  persons  which  may 
be  compared  to  the  chemical  affinities  of  different  elements.^ ^ 

To  distinguish  the  pedagogical  from  the  sociological  use 
of  the  term  "  interest,"  we  may  say  pedagogically  of  a  sup- 
posed case :  "  The  boy  has  no  interest  in  physical  culture,  or 
in  shop-work,  or  in  companionship  with  other  boys,  or  in 
learning,  or  in  art,  or  in  morality."  That  is,  attention  and 
choice  are  essential  elements  of  interest  in  the  pedagogical 
sense.  On  the  other  hand,  we  may  say  of  the  same  boy,  in  the 
sociological  sense  :  "  He  has  not  discovered  his  health,  wealth, 
sociability,  knowledge,  beauty,  and  rightness  interests."  We 
thus  imply  that  interests,  in  the  sociological  sense,  are  not 
necessarily  matters  of  attention  and  choice.  They  are  affini- 
ties, latent  in  persons,  pressing  for  satisfaction,  whether  the 
persons  are  conscious  of  them  either  generally  or  specifically, 
or  not;  they  are  indicated  spheres  of  activity  which  persons 
enter  into  and  occupy  in  the  course  of  realizing  their  per- 
sonality. 

Accordingly,  we  have  virtually  said  that  interests  are 
merely  specifications  in  the  make-up  of  the  personal  units. 
We  have  several  times  named  the  most  general  classes  of  inter- 

"  Quite  in  harmony  with  this  formula  is  the  conclusion  of  Professor 
Ludwig  Stein,  Die  sociale  Frage,  2d  ed.,  p.  519.  Closely  connected  with  this 
conception  of  the  social  process  is  Stein's  formula  of  the  ultimate  social  im- 
perative:    ibid.,  p.   522. 

"  Probably  it  is  needless  to  say  that  the  term  "  interest  "  in  this  connec- 
tion, whether  used  in  the  singular  or  the  plural,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
economic  term  "  interest." 


INTERESTS  435 

ests  which  we  find  serviceable  in  sociology,  viz, :  health,  wealth, 
sociability,  knoivlcdgc,  beauty,  and  rigJitness.  We  shall  speak 
more  in  detail  of  the  content  of  these  interests  in  the  next 
chapter. 

We  need  to  emphasize,  in  addition,  several  considerations 
about  these  interests  which  are  the  motors  of  all  individual 
and  social  action :  First,  there  is  a  subjective  and  an  objective 
aspect  of  them  all.  It  would  be  easy  to  use  terms  of  these 
interests  in  speculative  arguments  in  such  a  way  as  to  shift  the 
sense  fallaciously  from  the  one  aspect  to  the  other;  e.  g.,  moral 
conduct,  as  an  actual  adjustment  of  the  person  in  question 
with  other  persons,  is  that  person's  "  interest,"  in  the  objec- 
tive sense.  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  obliged  to  think  of 
something  in  the  person  himself  impelling  him,  however 
unconsciously,  toward  that  moral  conduct,  i.  e.,  interest  as 
"  unsatisfied  capacity,"  in  the  subjective  sense.  So  with  each 
of  the  other  interests.  The  fact  that  these  two  senses  of  the 
term  are  always  concerned  must  never  be  ignored;  but,  until 
we  reach  refinements  of  analysis  which  demand  use  for  these 
discriminations,  they  may  be  left  out  of  sight.  Second,  human 
interests  pass  more  and  more  from  the  latent,  subjective, 
unconscious  state  to  the  active,  objective,  conscious  form. 
That  is,  before  the  baby  is  self-conscious,  the  baby's  essential 
interest  in  bodily  well-being  is  operating  in  performance  of 
the  organic  functions.  A  little  later  the  baby  is  old  enough  to 
understand  that  certain  regulation  of  his  diet,  certain  kinds 
of  work  or  play,  will  help  to  make  and  keep  him  well  and 
strong.  Henceforth  there  is  in  him  a  co-operation  of  interest 
in  the  fundamental  sense,  and  interest  in  the  derived,  secondary 
sense,  involving  attention  and  choice.  If  we  could  agree  upon 
the  use  of  terms,  we  might  employ  the  word  "  desire  "  for  this 
development  of  interest;  i.  e.,  physiological  performance  of 
function  is,  strictly  speaking,  the  health  interest;  the  desires 
which  men  actually  pursue  within  the  realm  of  bodily  function 
may  be  normal,  or  perverted,  in  an  infinite  scale  of  variety.  So 
with  each  of  the  other  interests.     Third,  with  these  qualifica- 


436  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

tions  provided  for,  resolution  of  human  activities  into  pursuit 
of  differentiated  interests  becomes  the  first  clue  to  the  com- 
bination that  unlocks  the  mysteries  of  society.  For  our  pur- 
poses in  this  argument  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  very 
much  about  nice  metaphysical  distinctions  between  the  aspects 
of  interest,  because  we  have  mainly  to  do  with  interests  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  the  man  of  affairs  uses  the  term.^^  The 
practical  politician  looks  over  the  lobby  at  Washington,  and  he 
classifies  the  elements  that  compose  it.  He  says :  "  Here  is 
the  railroad  interest,  the  sugar  interest,  the  labor  interest,  the 
army  interest,  the  canal  interest,  the  Cuban  interest,  etc."  He 
uses  the  term  "  interest "  essentially  in  the  sociological  sense, 
but  in  a  relatively  concrete  form,  and  he  has  in  mind  little  more 
than  variations  of  the  wealth  interest.  He  would  explain  the 
legislation  of  a  given  session  as  the  final  balance  between  these 
conflicting  pecuniary  interests.  He  is  right,  in  the  main ;  and 
every  social  action  is,  in  the  same  way,  an  accommodation  of 
the  various  interests  which  are  represented  in  the  society 
concerned. 

It  ought  to  be  plain,  then,  that  our  analysis  of  society,  first 
into  the  operative  interests  within  the  units,  and  then  into  per- 
sonal units,  is  not  the  construction  of  an  esoteric  mystery,  to 
be  the  special  preserve  of  sociology.  It  is  a  frank,  literal, 
matter-of-fact  expression  of  the  reality  which  society  presents 
for  our  inspection ;  and  it  is  the  most  direct  step  toward  insight 
into  the  realities  of  society.  Social  problems  are  entanglements 
of  persons  with  persons,  and  each  of  these  persons  is  a  com- 
bination of  interests  developed  in  certain  unique  proportions 
and  directions.  All  study  of  social  situations  must  conse- 
quently be  primarily  a  qualitative  and  quantitative  analysis  of 
actually  observed  mixtures  of  interests.  Whether  it  is  a  prob- 
lem of  getting  the  pupils  in  a  school  to  do  good  work,  or  of 

''  We  might  reserve  the  term  "  interest  "  strictly  for  the  use  defined  above, 
applying  the  term  "  desire  "  to  the  subjective  aspect  of  choice,  and  "  want "  to 
the  objective  aspect,  i.  c,  the  thing  desired.  Precisely  because  the  term 
"  interest  "  is  in  current  use  for  all  these  aspects  of  the  case,  we  prefer  to 
retain  it. 


INTERESTS  437 

making  the  religious  force  in  a  church  effective,  or  of  defend- 
ing a  town  against  illegal  liquor  traffic,  or  of  organizing 
laborers  for  proper  competition  with  employers,  or  of  securing 
an  enlightened  national  policy  toward  foreign  peoples  — 
whether  the  particular  social  situation  or  problem  which  we 
have  in  hand  fills  only  the  four  walls  of  our  house  or  reaches 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  in  every  case  the  primary  terms  of  the 
problem  are  the  particular  interests  of  the  particular  persons 
who  compose  that  particular  situation. 

The  phrase  "  properties  of  numbers "  survives  in  many 
minds  from  their  earliest  encounters  with  arithmetic.  Whether 
or  not  it  was  good  pedagogy  to  use  the  phrase  we  will  not 
inquire,  but  the  idea  and  the  program  behind  the  phrase  may 
furnish  an  analogy  for  our  present  use.  The  boy  w4io  simply 
makes  change  for  the  papers  he  sells  on  the  street  corner  has 
this  at  least  in  common  with  Newton,  and  Laplace,  and  the 
bookkeepers,  and  the  actuaries,  and  the  engineers,  who  carry 
on  the  most  complicated  mathematical  calculations,  viz.,  they 
are  concerned  with  the  "  properties  of  numbers."  So  far  as 
the  problems  of  each  go,  they  must  learn,  somehow  or  other, 
to  know  the  properties  of  numbers  under  all  circumstances 
where  they  occur.  In  like  manner,  people  who  seek  social 
intelligence,  whether  they  are  street  gamins  hustling  for  a  liv- 
ing with  help  from  nobody,  or  social  philosophers  attempting 
to  report  the  past  and  to  foretell  the  future  of  the  human  fam- 
ily, all  are  dealing  with  the  properties  of  persons.  Just  as  the 
chemist  must  very  early  get  familiar  with  certain  primary  facts 
about  his  "elements,"  their  specific  gravity,  their  atomicity, 
their  relation  to  oxygen,  etc.,  etc. ;  so  the  sociologist,  whether 
amateur  or  professional,  must  early  get  a  working  knowledge 
of  the  essential  peculiarities  of  persons.  Sociology  accord- 
ingly involves  first  of  all  a  technique  for  detecting,  classifying, 
criticising,  measuring,  and  correlating  human  interests,  first 
with  reference  to  their  past  and  present  manifestations,  and 
second  with  reference  to  their  indications  for  the  future.  The 
sociological  study  that  is  provided  for  in  university  courses  is 


438  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

not  like  the  instruction  in  law,  whch  is  calculated  to  make 
men  the  most  effective  practitioners  under  the  code  that  now 
exists.  All  our  programs  of  sociological  study  are  more  like 
the  courses  in  pure  and  applied  mathematics  which  a  West 
Point  student  is  obliged  to  take.  They  are  not  expected  to 
give  him  specific  knowledge  of  the  situations  which  he  may 
encounter  in  a  campaign.  They  are  supposed  to  make  him 
familiar  with  the  elements  out  of  which  all  possible  military 
situations  are  composed,  with  the  means  of  calculating  all 
relationships  that  may  occur  between  these  elements,  and  with 
the  necessary  processes  of  controlling  theoretical  and  practical 
dealings  with  these  elements  under  any  circumstances  what- 
soever. 

Every  real  social  problem  throws  upon  the  sociologist  who 
undertakes  to  deal  with  it  the  task  of  calculating  a  unique 
equation  of  interests.  General  sociology  is  a  preparation  for 
judging  a  concrete  combination  of  interests  very  much  as  gen- 
eral training  in  physiology  and  pathology  and  clinical  observa- 
tion prepares  the  physician  for  diagnosis  of  the  new  cases 
which  will  occur  in  his  practice.  He  may  never  meet  precisely 
the  same  combinations  of  conditions  and  symptoms  which  he 
has  considered  in  the  course  of  his  preparatory  training,  but 
he  is  supposed  to  have  become  familiar  at  least  with  all  the 
general  types  of  conditions  and  symptoms  which  can  occur, 
and  to  have  acquired  ability  to  form  reliable  judgments  on  the 
specific  nature  of  any  new  combinations  of  them  which  he  may 
encounter. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  we  are  dealing  with  the  practical 
problems  of  law-enforcement  in  a  particular  town  in  a  state 
which  has  a  prohibition  law.  There  are  certain  very  familiar 
types  of  persons  who  persist  in  treating  the  situation  as  though 
it  were  an  affair  of  two  and  only  two  simple  factors,  viz.,  the 
law  on  the  one  side,  and  its  violation  on  the  other.  The  fact 
is  that  both  the  law  and  the  violation  are  expressions  of  highly 
complex  mixtures  of  interests,  and  neither  the  law  nor  the  vio- 
lation precisely  represents  the  actual   balance  of  interests  in 


INTERESTS  439 

the  community.  On  the  one  hand,  the  law  was  derived  from 
a  co-operation  of  at  least  these  six  factors,  viz. :  first,  a  high, 
pure,  moral  interest  that  was  uppermost  in  certain  people; 
second,  an  interest  in  good  social  repute,  spurred  by  a  state  of 
conscience  that  condemns  the  liquor  traffic,  but  without  enough 
moral  sympathy  with  the  condemnation  to  act  accordingly, 
unless  lashed  to  action  by  the  zeal  of  the  first  interest;  third, 
a  political  interest  in  making  capital  out  of  a  policy  which 
would  win  certain  voters;  fourth,  a  business  interest,  in  get- 
ting the  trade  of  certain  people  by  opposing  a  traffic  that  they 
oppose,  or  in  creating  difficulties  for  a  traffic  which  is  indi- 
rectly a  competitor;  fifth,  a  personal  or  family  interest,  in 
preventing  or  punishing  a  traffic  which  has  inflicted,  or 
threatens  to  inflictj  injury  upon  self  or  relatives;  sixth,  an 
interest  in  the  liquor  traffic  itself,  which  calculates  that  oppo- 
sition may  be  fought  more  adroitly  when  it  is  in  the  shape  of 
positive  law,  than  when  it  is  vague  and  general.  In  every  par- 
ticular case  these  six  sorts  of  interest  that  create  the  law  will 
be  subdivided  according  to  circumstances,  and  the  relative 
influence  of  each  will  vary  indefinitely.  We  no  sooner  realize 
these  facts  than  we  are  aware  that  in  its  substance,  its  force, 
its  spirit,  the  law  is  not  the  absolute,  categorical,  unequivocal 
factor  that  it  is  in  its  form.  While  it  has  no  uncertain  sound 
as  a  statutory  mandate,  expressed  in  impersonal  words,  it  has 
a  most  decidedly  quavering  quality  when  traced  back  to  the 
human  wills  whose  choices  give  it  all  its  power. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  analyze  violation  of  the  law,  we 
find  that  it  arises,  first,  from  thoroughly  immoral  interests  — 
greed  of  gain,  contempt  for  social  rights,  willingness  to  profit 
by  the  physical  and  moral  ruin  of  others ;  second,  the  interest 
in  satisfying  the  drink  appetite.  This  ranges  from  the  strong 
and  constant  demand  of  the  habitual  drunkard  to  the  weak 
and  intermittent  demand  of  the  man  who  uses  liquor  some- 
what as  he  uses  olives  or  citron  or  malted  milk.  Third,  the 
interest  in  personal  freedom.  There  are  always  people  in  con- 
siderable numbers  who  want  to  do  w^hatever  others  presume 


440  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

to  say  they  ought  not  to  do.  This  faction  includes  elements 
varying  from  hopeless  moral  perversity  to  highly  developed 
moral  refinement.  Fourth,  business  interests  not  directly  con- 
nected with  the  liquor  traffic :  belief  that  trade  follows  the 
bartender;  desire  to  keep  solid  with  the  interests  directly 
dependent  upon  the  liquor  traffic;  competition  with  other 
towns  that  are  said  to  draw  away  trade  by  favoring  liquor 
sellers;  etc.  Fifth,  political  interests:  desire  to  use  the  liquor 
interest  for  personal  or  party  ends.  Sixth,  social  interests. 
Friends  are  directly  or  indirectly  interested  in  the  liquor  traffic, 
and  influence  must  go  in  their  favor,  from  the  negative  kind 
that  allows  hands  to  be  tied  and  mouths  closed,  to  the  positive 
kind  that  manipulates  influence  of  every  sort  to  obstruct  the 
operation  of  the  law.  Seventh,  legitimate  business  interests. 
This  rough  analysis  of  the  situation  shows  that,  instead 
of  two  simple  factors,  viz.,  law  and  lawlessness,  we  are  really 
dealing  with  a  strangely  assorted  collection  of  interests,  awk- 
wardly struggling  to  express  themselves  in  theory  and  in 
practice.  We  are  not  arguing  the  question  how  to  deal  with 
the  liquor  traffic,  and  we  are  not  implying  an  opinion  one  way 
or  the  other  about  prohibitory  laws.  We  are  simply  showing 
that,  whether  we  are  dealing  with  one  kind  of  a  law  or  another, 
we  may  be  very  uncritical  about  the  ultimate  factors  involved. 
The  two  facts  in  question,  viz.,  the  law  and  the  violation, 
prove  to  be  in  reality  the  selfsame  persons  expressing  different 
elements  of  their  own  interests.  The  father  of  the  prohibitory 
policy  has  been  known  to  plead  with  a  judge  not  to  pass  sen- 
tence on  a  liquor-seller  in  accordance  with  his  own  law.  The 
same  persons  who  sustain  the  law  also  violate  the  law  in  some 
of  the  different  degrees  of  violating  and  sustaining  referred 
to  above.  The  law  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  violation  on  the 
other,  are  nothing  but  shadows,  or  apparitions,  or  accidents, 
except  as  they  reflect  the  actual  balance  of  interests  present 
in  the  members  of  the  community.  The  real  problems  involved 
are,  first,  to  discover  whether  the  law  or  the  violation  most 
nearly  corresponds  with  the  actual  desires  lodged  in  the  per- 


INTERESTS  441 

sons ;  and,  second,  to  devise  ways  and  means  of  changing'  the 
balance  of  desires  in  the  persons,  in  case  immorahty  proves 
to  be  the  community  choice. 

It  is  both  a  social  and  a  sociological  blunder  to  proceed  as 
though  the  law  were  something  precise,  invariable,  and  abso- 
lute. The  law  is  an  approximate  verbal  expression  of  social 
choices  which  are  mixed,  variable,  and  accommodating  in  a 
very  high  degree.  The  law  has  no  existence,  as  a  real  power, 
outside  of  the  continued  choices  of  the  community  that  gives 
it  effect.  In  a  very  real  and  literal  sense  it  is  necessary  to  get 
the  algebraic  sum  both  of  the  law-abiding  and  of  the  law- 
violating  interests,  in  order  to  know  just  what  the  psycho- 
logical choice  of  the  community,  as  distinguished  from  the 
formal  law,  really  is. 

This  illustration  has  been  carried  out  at  such  length 
because  it  is  a  kind  of  problem  with  which  all  of  us  are  more 
or  less  in  contact,  and  our  ways  of  dealing  with  it  frequently 
show  practical  disregard  of  the  elementary  significance  of  the 
operative  interests  concerned.  The  main  point  is  that,  for 
theoretical  or  practical  dealing  with  concrete  social  problems, 
we  need  to  be  expert  in  detecting  and  in  measuring  the  pre- 
cise species  of  interests  that  combine  to  form  the  situation. 
To  carry  the  illustration  a  little  farther,  some  of  the  states  in 
the  American  union  agree  to  prohibit  both  intemperance  and 
ignorance.  In  general,  all  of  us,  both  communities  and  indi- 
viduals, condemn  both  vices.  We  put  our  condemnation  in 
the  shape  of  laws  regulating  the  liquor  traffic,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  laws  establishing  free  and  perhaps  compulsory  edu- 
cation, on  the  other  hand.  When  we  attempt  to  define  intem- 
perance and  ignorance,  however,  we  find  that  we  have  infi- 
nitely varied  points  of  view,  and  that  our  desires  are  cor- 
respondingly varied.  We  consequently  lend  very  different 
elements  of  meaning  and  force  to  the  formal  laws.  Some  of 
us  think  that  intemperance  begins  only  when  a  man  gets  physi- 
cally violent,  or  fails  to  pay  for  the  liquor  he  consumes ;  and 
that  ignorance  means  inability  to  read  and  write.     Others  of 


442  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

US  think  that  intemperance  exists  whenever  fermented  or  alco- 
holic liquors  are  swallowed  in  any  form  or  quantity,  and  that 
ignorance  is  lack  of  college  education.  Accordingly,  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  continued  consumption  of  liquors,  in  spite  of 
laws  against  intemperance,  and  of  persistent  non-consumption 
of  school  privileges,  in  spite  of  laws  against  ignorance,  are 
equally  and  alike  inevitable  manifestations  of  the  actual  assort- 
ment of  desires  out  of  which  the  community  life  is  composed. 
We  repeat,  then :  The  problem  of  changing  the  facts  is  the 
problem  of  transforming  the  interests  (desires)  that  make  the 
facts.  Social  efficiency,  on  the  part  of  persons  zealous  to  alter 
the  factSj  involves  skill  in  discovering  the  actual  character  of 
the  desires  present,  knowledge  of  the  psychology  of  desires, 
and  tact  in  the  social  pedagogy  and  politics  and  diplomacy 
which  convert  less  into  more  social  desires. 

These  statements  imply  all  the  reasons  for  the  study  of 
fundamental  sociology.  From  first  to  last,  our  life  is  a  web 
woven  by  our  interests.  Sociology  might  be  said  to  be  the 
science  of  human  interests  and  their  workings  under  all  condi- 
tions, just  as  chemistry  is  sometimes  defined  as  "the  science  of 
atoms  and  their  behavior  under  all  conditions."  Man  at  his 
least  is  merely  a  grubbing  and  mating  animal.  He  has  devel- 
oped no  interests  beyond  those  of  grubbing  and  mating,  or 
those  tributary  to  grubbing  and  mating.  Every  civilization 
in  the  world  today  carries  along  a  certain  percentage  of  sur- 
vivals of  this  order  of  interests,  and  societies  still  exist  wholly 
on  the  level  of  these  interests.  On  the  other  hand,  some  men 
develop  such  attenuated  spiritual  interests  that  they  pay  only 
perfunctory  and  grudging  tribute  to  the  body  at  all,  and  live 
in  an  atmosphere  of  unworldly  contemplation.  Between  these 
extremes  are  the  activities  of  infinitely  composite  society, 
moved  by  infinite  diversities  of  interests.  These  interests, 
however,  as  we  have  seen,  are  variations  and  permutations 
of  a  few  rudimentary  interests.  Onr  knowledge  of  sociology', 
i.  e.,  our  systematized  knowledge  of  the  human  process,  ivill 
be  measured  by  the  extent  of  our  ability  to  interpret  all  human 
society  in  terms  of  its  effective  interests. 


CHAPTER  XXXIP 

THE  INDIVIDUAL 

Today's  sociology  is  still  struggling  with  the  preposterous 
initial  fact  of  the  individual.  He  is  the  only  possible  social 
unit,  and  he  is  no  longer  a  thinkable  possibility.  He  is  the 
only  real  presence,  and  he  is  never  present.  Whether  we  are 
near  to  resolution  of  the  paradox  or  not,  there  is  hardly  more 
visible  consensus  about  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the 
whole  than  at  any  earlier  period.  Indeed,  the  minds  of  more 
people  than  ever  before  are  puzzled  by  the  seeming  antinomy 
between  the  individual  and  the  whole.-  ^  "* 

Advancing  upon  our  analysis  of  interests  as  such,  we  have 
now  to  speak  of  interests  as  we  find  them  combined  in  actual 

^  Cf.  Baldwin,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations,  passim ;  Cooley,  Human 
Nature  and  the  Social  Order. 

"  Cf.  Royce,  The  World  nnd  the  Individual. 

^ "  Der  Zug  der  Naturwissenscliaften  ....  geht  zur  Einheit.  Anders  im 
Bereich  der  Socialwissenschaften.  Zwar  die  theoretische  Sociallehre,  das 
social  Seiende  durch  Causalanalysen  erklarend,  zeigt  gleichfalls  den  Zug  zur 
Einheit.  Nicht  aber  die  praktische  Sociallehre ;  zwei  contradictorische  Grund- 
normen   des    Seinsollens   stehen   hier   in    ewigem    Widerstreit   sich    gegeniiber : 

das  Individualprincip  und  das  Socialprincip Diese  Grundnormen  stehen 

sich  als  Axiome  gegeniiber,  welche  nicht  bewiesen,  sondern  nur  geglaubt 
werden  konnen.  Es  handelt  sich  um  eine  logische  Antinomic ;  das  dem  letzten 
Grunde  des  socialen  Seinsollens  naclispiirende  Denken  zwingt  uns  entweder  im 
Individual-  oder  im  Socialprincip  den  letzten  Schluss  socialer  Weisheit  zu 
suchen ;  aber  es  zwingt  uns  zugleich  zu  der  Erkenntniss,  dass  die  Entscheidung, 
welche  wohl  oder  iibel  vollzogen  werden  muss,  wilkiirlich  ist."  (Dietzel, 
Theoretische  Sociatokonomik,  p.  7.)  Unless  "  ewiger  Widerstreit "  is  to  be 
understood  as  mere  hyperbole,  Dietzel  does  not  see  so  far  as  he  should  into  a 
theoretical  and  practical  reconciliation  of  the  two  principles.  Indeed,  his 
proposition,  taken  literally,  illustrates  our  assertion  of  confusion  in  modern 
minds.  It  posits  an  antinomy  between  theoretical  and  applied  social  science. 
Our  whole  conception  of  "  the  social  process  "  offers  something  better  than  a 
hopeless  dualism  of  "  the  individual  "  and  "  the  social." 

*A  very  intelligent  discussion  of  this  subject  may  be  found  in  McGilvary, 
"  Society  and  the  Individual,"  Philosophical  Review,  May,   1900. 

443 


444  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

individuals.  We  have  thus  to  set  in  order  certain  common- 
places which  are  so  obvious  that  all  kinds  of  social  theorists 
have  usually  treated  them  with  silent  contempt.  Our  purpose 
in  this  part  of  the  discussion  is  not  to  propose  psychological, 
and  still  less  metaphysical,  solutions.  We  shall  simply  sched- 
ule, with  scant  illustration,  certain  components  of  the  real 
individual  which  are  to  be  reckoned  with  whenever  w^e  try 
to  understand  human  affairs.  Psychological  analyses  and 
metaphysical  hypotheses  have  their  own  competence  with 
respect  to  these  elements,  but  all  sane  social  theory  must  first 
accept  certain  crude  facts  as  part  of  its  raw  material,  and  the 
constant  significance  of  these  facts  is  not  likely  to  be  set 
aside  by  any  sort  of  subsequent  criticism. 

In  general,  then,  the  human  individual,  when  considered 
as  sentient,  and  not  in  his  merely  passive  relations  as  a  parcel 
of  matter,  acts  always  with  reference  to  ends  which  may  be 
classified  in  six  groups.  For  the  sake  of  convenient  refer- 
ence, w^e  may  press  a  single  term  into  service  as  a  group- 
name  in  each  instance.  Speaking  somewhat  roughly  and 
symbolically,  we  may  say  again  that  all  the  acts  which  human 
beings  have  ever  been  known  to  perform  have  been  for  the 
sake  of  (a)  health,  or  (b)  wealth,  or  (c)  sociability,  or  (d) 
knowledge,  or  (e)  beauty,  or  (/)  rightness,  or  for  the  sak^ 
of  some  combination  of  ends  w-hich  may  be  distributed  among 
these  six.^  The  individual  as  we  know  him  is  an  insatiate 
demand  for  satisfactions  included  within  these  groups.  The 
individual  as  we  know  him  manifests  no  demands  for  satis- 
factions which  may  not  be  placed  within  one  or  more  of  these 
groups.  Without  affecting  profitless  precision  in  use  of  terms, 
we  may  promote  our  purpose  by  double  ellipsis  as  follows : 
First,  human  individuals  are  centers  of  desires  for  (a)  health, 
(b)  wealth,  (c)  sociability,  ((/)  knowledge,  (e)  beauty,  (/) 
rightness.  Second,  the  desires  in  view  of  which  men  act  are 
(a)  health,  (b)  w-ealth,  (c)  sociability,  (d)  knowledge,  (e) 
beauty,    (/)    rightness.      Nothing   in    our    present    discussion 

•  Cf.  Small  and  Vincent,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Society,  pp.  174  ff. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  445 

hinges  on  this  use  of  the  term  "desire,"  now  in  the  subjec- 
tive and  again  in  the  objective  sense.  The  Hberty  will  there- 
fore be  taken  of  returning  to  our  general  term  "  interest,"  ^ 
and  our  thesis  reduces  to  these  algebraic  forms :  first,  the 
human  individual  is  a  variation  of  the  sixfold  interests,  i.  e., 
desires  (subjective) ;  and,  second,  the  conditions  of  human 
satisfaction  consist  of  variations  of  the  sixfold  interests,  i.  e., 
wants  (objective). 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  guard  at  the  outset  against  pos- 
sible misconception  of  what  the  foregoing  propositions  imply. 
It  is  not  asserted,  for  instance,  that  from  the  moment  when 
the  genus  homo  emerged  in  the  zoological  series  there  was 
forthwith  efficient  demand  for  each  of  the  six  species  of 
wants.  It  is  not  asserted  that  men  are  invariably,  or  even 
usually,  conscious  of  all  six  interests,  or  that  they  classify  the 
ends  of  their  actions  under  these  categories.  It  is  not  asserted 
that  when  men  are  acting  in  ways  which  tend  to  satisfy  some 
form  of  these  interests,  they  are  necessarily  conscious  of  the 
motive  or  of  the  tendency  of  their  conduct.  The  proposition 
is  primarily  that,  so  far  as  we  are  acquainted  with  the  human 
individual,  he  does  not  and  cannot  get  himself  into  motion, 
except  under  the  conscious  or  luiconscious  impulse  of  one  or 
more  of  these  interests ;  and,  moreover,  he  does  not  and  can- 
not entertain  a  desire  which  is  not  assignable  to  a  place  in 
this  sixfold  classification.  There  may  be  individuals  who 
have  never  betrayed  a  desire  for  knowledge  or  beauty  or  right- 
ness.  If  so,  they  must  be  classified  as  individuals  in  whom  the 
life-process  has  not  passed  through  all  its  typical  forms.  No 
individual  has  ever  been  observed  with  desires  having  a  real 
content  that  could  not  be  located  within  the  six  divisions  speci- 
fied. Health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  beauty.  Tightness, 
exhaust  the  known  demands  of  the  individual,  and  at  the  same 
time  in  their  varieties  and  permutations  they  fill  the  bounds 
of  the  known  objective  possibilities  of  the  individual. 

'As  we  have  said  above  (p.  436),  it  would  be  an  improvement  in  certain 
respects  if  we  adopted  the  scale  "interest,"  "desire"  (subjective),  "want" 
(objective)  ;    but  we  prefer  for  the  present  this  alternative. 


446  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

But  we  shall  be  very  far  from  taking  for  granted  the  real 
individual  with  whom  sociology  has  to  reckon,  if  we  picture 
either  desires  or  wants  as  fixed  in  quantity  or  in  quality. 
Human  desires  are  not  so  many  mathematical  points.  They 
may  rather  be  represented  to  our  imagination  as  so  many  con- 
tiguous surfaces,  stretching  out  from  angles  whose  areas  pres- 
ently begin  to  overlap  each  other,  and  whose  sides  extend 
indefinitely. 

This  phase  of  the  facts  carries  inspiring  teleological  impli- 
cations. We  shall  return  to  them  in  later  chapters.  We  shall 
try  to  show  that  in  the  facts  to  which  we  now  refer,  there  is 
a  clue  to  a  more  precise  content  for  a  philosophy  of  life,  indi- 
vidual and  social,  than  we  have  hitherto  attained,  and  that 
sociology  must  at  last  undertake  to  trace  out  the  indications 
already  partly  legible  in  these  known  human  desires.^  At 
present,  however,  we  are  concerned  neither  with  prophecy  nor 
with  history,  but  with  discrimination  of  what  actually  is.  We 
are  recording  our  perceptions  of  certain  marks  which,  to  the 
best  of  our  present  knowledge,  always  characterize  the  human 
individual,  and  which  always,  sooner  or  later,  combine  to 
carry  on  the  human  part  of  the  social  process.  In  brief,  either 
the  social  process  in  the  large,  or  that  portion  of  the  process 
which  is  comprised  within  the  limits  of  an  individual  life,  is 
a  resultant  of  reactions  between  the  six  interests,  primarily  in 
their  permutations  within  the  individual,  secondarily  in  their 
permutations  between  individuals,  and  always  in  their  varied 
reciprocity  with  the  non-sentient  environment.  Each  of  these 
interests  is  incessantly  conditioning  and  conditioned  by  each 
of  the  others.  In  scheduling  them  we  are  constantly  tempted 
to  digress  into  examination  of  their  reciprocal  relations.  Our 
aim  in  this  section,  however,  is  to  keep  attention  as  steadily 
as  possible  upon  these  six  interests  in  turn,  as  the  ultimate 
human  factors  with  which  pure  sociology  has  to  deal. 

To  recapitulate  :  The  sociological  form  of  study  of  human 
association  sets  out  from  the  point  where  physiology  and  psy- 

'  Vide  chap.  39. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  447 

chology  stop ;  or,  rather,  it  is  more  accurate  to  say  that  socio- 
logical study  begins  where  physiology  and  psychology  would 
stop  if  they  conformed  to  a  rigidly  schematic  program;  or 
where  they  would  stop  if  our  mental  processes  occurred  in 
the  lineal  and  serial  order  in  which  we  have  to  represent  them 
in  speech.  In  fact,  each  advance  of  our  knowledge  of  men  in 
association  makes  new  requisitions  upon  physiology  and  psy- 
chology for  closer  knowledge  of  individuals ;  and  this  more 
intimate  physiology  and  psychology  in  turn  reopens  doctrines 
about  association,  and  proposes  new  inquiries  for  sociology. 
In  any  given  inquiry,  Jiozvcvcr,  the  psychologist,  as  such,  takes 
association  as  the  known  and  fixed  factor,  in  order  to  pur- 
sue investigation  of  his  undetermined  subject-matter  —  the 
mechanism  of  the  individual  actor.  The  sociologist,  as  such, 
on  the  contrary,  takes  the  individual  for  granted,  and  pur- 
sues investigation  of  his  undetermined  subject-matter,  viz., 
associations.  The  individual  accepted  by  the  sociologist  as  his 
working  unit  is  the  human  person  endowed  with  interests 
which  manifest  themselves  as  desires  for  health,  wealth,  socia- 
bility, knowledge,  beauty,  and  rightness.  To  the  best  of  our 
present  knowledge,  all  the  things  that  occur  in  human  asso- 
ciations are  functions  of  these  factors  composing  individuals, 
in  reaction  with  the  variable  factors  of  external  conditions 
which  make  up  each  individual's  environment.  The  descrip- 
tive task  of  sociology,  or  the  task  of  "  descriptive  sociology," 
is  to  furnish  a  true  account  of  real  men  in  their  real  relations 
with  the  other  men  with  whom  they  associate.  We  pass, 
then,  to  more  specific  indication  of  the  individual  interests : 
a)  The  Health  Interest. —  Men  are  first  and  generi- 
cally  splendid  animals.  Human  capacities  mark  the  human 
type  as  fit  for  the  most  intricate  correlations  of  physical  func- 
tion, for  superior  economy  of  physical  energy,  for  exquisite 
harmony  of  physical  action,  and  for  corresponding  eagerness 
of  physical  enjoyment.  Theories  or  appreciations  of  life 
derived  from  this  perception  exclusively  have  tended  to  the 
perversion  of  life  manifested  in  the  later  Dionysia  at  Athens 


448  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

or  in  the  Saturnalia  at  Rome.  On  the  other  hand,  theories  of 
hfe  which  go  to  the  other  extreme  of  denying  and  repudiating 
the  normaHty  of  physical  excellence,  with  its  appropriate  glad- 
ness, have  tended  to  the  opposite  monstrosities  of  asceticism. 
The  anchorite  is  as  far  as  the  sybarite  from  a  final  rendering 
of  life.  The  concrete  goods  of  life  are  incommensurable,  but 
they  are  not  incompatible.  The  just  balance  of  life  has  not 
been  found  by  eliminating  certain  normal  elements  of  human 
good,  and  exaggerating  other  elements  beyond  their  propor- 
tionate worth.  The  Greek  ideal  was  not  the  whole  truth,  but 
it  contained  elements  of  truth  which  men  have  never  been 
able  long  to  ignore.  Plato  declares  that  his  wish  for  life  is : 
"  to  be  healthy  and  beautiful,  to  become  rich  honestly,  and 
to  be  gay  and  merry  with  my  friends."  The  first  item  in 
his  specifications  was  doubtless  his  version  of  aax^pwavvr}. 
It  appears  to  have  meant  to  the  Greek,  not  all  that  our  render- 
ing "  wisdom "  connotes  to  us,  but  physical  reasonableness, 
moderated  and  temperate  sensuousness  —  not  quite  the  "  sweet 
reasonableness"  of  modern  Hellenism,  but  a  fragment  of  the 
later  conception.  If  Hawthorne  correctly  transferred  the  idea 
of  Praxiteles'  Faun  to  Donatello,  that  artless  creature  before 
his  transformation  symbolized  not  merely  the  Greek,  but  the 
universal  norm  of  one  element  in  human  personality.  The 
right  man  will  be  a  man  of  exuberant,  exultant  health.  With- 
out generalizing  this  ideal  as  a  program,  every  man,  accord- 
ing to  his  insight,  instinctively  or  systematically  reaches  after 
this  realization.  Right  human  life  will  be  the  life  of  a  race 
of  splendid  physical  men.  The  starved,  the  stunted,  the  feeble, 
the  sick  man  advertises  arrest  or  deflection  of  the  life-process. 
Before  and  after  health  becomes  a  reflective  desire,  it  is  the 
primary  instinctive  desire.  Before  and  after  the  activities  that 
belong  to  health  are  balanced  and  proportioned  and  regulated, 
they  often  betray  a  fierce  force  that  leaps  over  the  limits  of 
good  in  their  own  realm,  and  threatens  all  the  other  goods  of 
life.  Neither  the  abuses  of  excessive  vitality,  however,  nor 
the  misfortunes  of  defective  vitality,  can  permanently  confuse 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  449 

our  inevitable  desire  for  health  in  its  appropriate  form  and 
power.  Before  and  in  and  through  all  his  other  activities,  the 
individual  is  incessant  urgency  and  exercise  of  the  health 
desire. 

Hebrew  wisdom  placed  the  half-truth,  "All  that  a  man 
hath  will  he  give  for  his  life,"  in  the  mouth  of  the  father  of 
lies.  It  is  impossible  to  substitute  a  formula  that  wnll  cor- 
rectly express  the  ratio  between  the  health  desire  and  all  the 
other  desires,  because  the  ratio  is  infinitely  variable.  Some- 
times a  man  will  forego  all  else  for  the  privilege  of  continuing 
to  exist.  Again  he  will  jauntily  throw  away  his  life  for  a 
principle  or  a  sentiment  or  a  passion.  Today  he  will  give  his 
kingdom  for  the  ransom  of  his  body,  and  tomorrow  he  will 
stake  life  and  fortune  against  tribute  of  a  penny.  We  need  not 
at  present  raise  any  of  the  baffling  questions  about  the  com- 
parative significance  of  the  several  elements  of  human  desire. 
Our  emphasis  now  is  upon  the  fact  that  the  actual  individual 
of  real  life  is  made  up  of  some  proportion  or  other  of  the  six 
desires  which  we  have  scheduled.  One  or  more  of  these  may 
be  negligible  quantities  in  exceptional  cases,  but  in  the  aver- 
age man  each  of  them  is  always  present,  and  occasions  may 
arise  when  either  of  them  will  become  dominant.  We  do  not 
know  the  real  individual,  then,  until  we  recognize  him  as  a 
resultant  of  these  six  desires  in  some  power  and  proportion. 
The  health  desire  is  the  least  questionable  of  all. 

At  this  point  we  can  indicate  only  a  formal  expression  and 
application  of  this  fact  in  sociological  theory  and  in  social 
praxis.  There  w^ill  always  exist  an  implicit  minimum  stand- 
ard of  the  health  satisfactions.  As  in  the  case  of  each  of  the 
other  constituent  desires,  this  standard  will  vary  with  indi- 
viduals and  with  groups.  Whenever  the  individual  or  group 
status  falls  below  a  certain  minimum  of  health  condition,  the 
life-process  in  the  individual  or  the  group  is  to  that  extent 
turned  destructively  against  itself.  The  practical  bearings  of 
this  and  similar  abstract  generalizations  that  are  to  follow 
should  suggest  themselves.    We  must  confine  this  part  of  the 


450  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

argument,  however,  to  pure  sociological  theory.  A  later  por- 
tion of  the  discussion  will  deal  with  the  question,  in  the  case 
of  each  of  these  desires  in  turn :  What  is  the  most  and  the 
best  indicated  by  the  known  conditions  of  life,  as  available  for 
men  in  each  of  these  realms  of  satisfaction? 

b)  The  Wealth  Interest. —  After  a  century  and  a 
quarter  of  the  economic  abstraction  recommended  by  Adam 
Smith,  there  is  little  call  for  debate  over  the  existence  of 
something  in  the  human  individual  corresponding  with  the 
concept  "  the  economic  man."  Even  the  economic  man 
assumed  in  pure  theory,  howeverj  is  by  no  means  a  mere  alias 
of  the  wealth  desire  as  we  apprehend  it.  The  traditional 
economic  man  is  a  relatively  advanced  and  complex  social 
product,  not  a  simple  social  element.  The  economic  man  is 
not  a  plain  affinity  for  wealth.  Sometimes  he  is  a  more  expert 
and  persistent  scatterer  than  accumulator  of  wealth.  Some- 
times wealth  is  almost  altogether  a  means  with  him,  and 
scarcely  to  any  appreciable  degree  an  end.  Sometimes  he 
plays  the  economic  game  just  as  another  plays  whist  or  bil- 
liards or  golf.  Sometimes  he  wants  wealth  because  his  wife 
wants  society.  Sometimes  he  wants  wealth  in  order  to  propa- 
gate his  creed,  or  to  punish  his  enemy,  or  to  win  a  maid,  or  to 
buy  a  title,  or  to  control  a  party.  In  either  case  the  economic 
man  is  a  man  of  highly  mixed  motives,  and  it  is  curious  that 
in  all  our  economic  literature  there  has  been  so  little  analysis 
of  the  wealth  desire,  in  distinction  from  the  forms  of  economic 
action  in  which  the  wealth  motive  is  largely  mediate.  The 
fact  that  most  of  the  things  deemed  desirable  in  highly  devel- 
oped society  are  to  be  accomplished  only  with  the  aid  of 
wealth,  obscures  more  than  it  reveals  the  intimate  nature  of 
the  wealth  desire  proper.  When  men  want  wealth  for  reasons 
extrinsic  to  itself,  they  are  specimens  of  "the  economic  man." 
to  be  sure,  but  they  are  exemplifying  the  fact  that  the  economic 
man  is  prompted  by  desires  other  than  the  wealth  desire.  Some 
men  —  indeed,  the  primal  animal  in  each  one  of  us  —  want 
wealth  for  the  sake  of  the  physical  sensations  that  come  from 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  45i 

consuming  it.  Dialecticians  might  find  it  easy  to  maintain 
that  in  this  case  the  health  stimulus  rather  than  the  wealth 
stimulus  is  primary.  At  all  events,  when  men  want  wealth 
for  its  own  sake,  the  impulse  appears  to  be  at  the  outset  an 
instinct  of  a  creative  sort,  a  desire  to  control  nature  or  to 
conform  nature  to  the  agent's  ideas.** 

In  one  fraction  of  his  nature  man  is  an  eagerness  to  be  a 
god.  If  autonomy,  in  the  most  restricted  sense,  satisfied  this 
urgency,  health  would  be  a  realization  of  the  human  ambition 
of  sovereignty,  i.  e.,  complete  autonomy  of  the  physical  organ- 
ism. Man  does  not  find  himself  complete,  however,  as  a  god 
in  a  vacuum.  His  rule  requires  a  realm.  Things  furnish  that 
realm.  The  lordship  of  man  over  man  occurs  wherever  force 
can  assert  it,  and  the  sense  of  justice  does  not  estop  it.  When 
men  cannot  or  will  not  lord  it  over  each  other,  there  still 
remains  to  them  a  means  of  partially  completing  the  circuit 
of  self-realization  in  the  lordship  over  things.  Things  subject 
to  personality  is  the  formula  of  a  second  stage  or  phase  of 
the  completeness  of  the  real  individual.  It  is  part  of  complete 
human  personality  to  exercise  lordship  over  things.  The  sav- 
agery of  the  savage  is  primarily  his  inability  to  lord  it  over 
things.  In  the  midst  of  limitless  resources  of  ores  and  fibers 
and  forces,  he  commands  nothing,  he  marshals  nothing,  he 
compels  nothing  to  his  service.  His  wealth  is  raw  roots  and 
flesh  and  pelts,  and  tools  that  the  monkeys  may  have  used, 
and  used  about  as  well.  He  begins  to  be  a  man  in  beginning 
to  take  completer  possession  of  things,  in  ordering  them 
about,  in  molding  them  to  his  will,  in  mastering  them  at  the 
caprice  of  his  imagination.  The  truth  is,  the  modern  vice 
is  not  too  much  devotion  to  wealth,  but  too  little.  Our  materi- 
alism is  too  extensive,  but  not  intensive  enough.  It  puts  up 
with  quantitative  title  instead  of  qualitative  possession. 

Perhaps  there  is  a  literal  truth  which  we  have  overlooked 
in  the  dictum  of  St.  Paul:     "The  love  of  money  is  the  root 

*  Professor  Veblen's  theory  of  "  the  instinct  of  workmanship "  seems  to 
have  much  in  common  with  this  proposition. 


452  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  all  evil."  Money  is  the  emptiest  wealth  which  men  possess. 
Money  is  the  opium  of  industry.  The  vice  of  money  is  its 
insinuation  into  the  place  of  wealth.  Money  debauches  men 
by  leading  them  to  substitute  for  the  exercise  of  the  possessing 
function  habitual  purchase  of  personal  service.  Money  is  a 
subtle  means  of  tempting  men  from  normal  lordship  over 
things  to  abnormal  lordship  over  persons.  Money  makes  men 
veritable  rois  faineants  in  the  realm  of  things. 

The  Mosaic  code  contains  the  precept:  "And  thou  shalt 
take  no  gift :  for  the  gift  blindeth  the  wise,  and  perverteth 
the  words  of  the  righteous."^  Money  is  a  conventional  dis- 
guise of  gift-taking.  This  is  not  an  estimate  of  the  total  func- 
tion of  money,  but  a  statement  of  one  of  the  forms  of  abuse 
to  which  money  is  liable.  Effects  visible  in  modern  society 
verify  the  Mosaic  prognosis.  Modern  men  are  less  than  men 
because  so  many  of  us  possess  things  only  by  proxy,  and 
because  such  wealth  as  we  have,  as  proprietors,  is  merely  the 
partial  usufruct  of  other  people's  lordship  over  things.  I  buy 
the  thing  I  cannot  produce.  Another  masters  nature  and  pro- 
duces the  thing  which  I  buy.  He  lords  it  over  things.  I  am 
powerless  over  the  same  things  until  he  masters  them  for  me. 
In  this  transaction  he  is  the  man,  and  by  so  much  I  am  less 
than  man. 

The  only  adequate  demonstration  of  the  "  dignity  of 
labor  "  is  to  be  reached  in  this  connection.  The  phrase  in  our 
civilization  is,  on  the  one  hand^  an  instinctive  and  indignant 
claim  to  more  credit  than  society  concedes,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  form  of  cajolery  which  carries  little  genuine  appre- 
ciation. The  dignity  of  labor,  as  labor,  resides  in  the  pre- 
rogative of  mastery.  Not  all  labor  is  dignified.  Courage  is 
dignified,  and  the  man  who,  for  the  sake  of  biding  his  time 
and  meanwhile  feeding  his  family,  bravely  digs  ditches  or 
carries  a  hod.  while  aware  that  the  work  is  beneath  his  powers, 
is  dignified  in  his  courage,  though  menial  in  his  toil.  There 
is  no  dignity  in  drudgery,  though  there  is  dignity  in  endur- 

•  Exod.   22, :  8. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  453 

ance.  Dignified  labor  is  masterful  and  creative  labor.  A 
treadmill  is  a  slave-pen.  A  forge  or  a  carj^enter's  bench  may 
be  a  kingdom.  That  labor  is  dignified  in  which  mind  molds 
things.  Labor  is  dignified  in  proportion  as  it  is  mental  mas- 
tery of  materials  or  conditions.  The  wealth  produced  by 
mental  mastery  is  the  regalia  of  the  real  man.  The  initial 
dignity  of  labor,  then,  is  its  realization  of  a  portion  of  the 
process  of  manhood,  not  its  mere  seizure  of  the  means  of 
partial  manhood. 

We  repeat,  therefore,  that  the  modern  vice  is  not  too  much 
devotion  to  wealth,  but  too  little.  Modern  life  drowns  the 
wine's  bouquet  in  the  very  mass  of  the  wine.  We  literally 
lose  our  lives  in  the  business  by  which  we  plan  to  find  life. 
Our  social  inventions  for  the  administration  of  things  have 
spoiled  their  administrators  for  the  lordship  of  things.  The 
pseudo-wealth  which  we  have  ennobled  to  equality  with  real 
wealth  has  degraded  us  in  return.  We  have  gained  the  Midas 
touch,  but  we  have  forfeited  the  full  franchise  of  wealth. 
While  we  handle  the  symbols  of  wealth,  we  neglect  or  we 
delegate  the  arts  of  creating  wealth,  and  we  grow  impotent  to 
appropriate  wealth. ^^ The  mere  manipulator  of  money  knows 
none  of  the  campaigns  with  nature,  the  assaults  upon 
intrenched  resistance,  the  defeats,  the  changes  of  front,  the 
retreats,  the  flank  movements,  the  fine  strategies  against  obsti- 
nate physical  properties,  the  renewed  attacks,  the  patience,  the 
persistence,  the  intelligence  that  conquer  things.  Ignorant  of 
the  conflict,  he  cannot  appreciate  the  conquest.  If  we  have 
the  money  power  merely,  the  victors  have  emancipated  us,  but 
they  cannot  enfranchise  us.  In  spite  of  our  liberty,  we  are 
still  unfree. 

A  partial  recognition  of  these  facts  is  in  the  tradition  of 
many  princely  families  that  the  sons  and  even  the  daughters 
must  learn  some  industrial  craft.  There  is  also  in  this  con- 
nection a  profounder  sanction  than  is  usually  asserted  for  the 
reinforcement  of  our  school  curricula  by  manual  training. 
The  experimental  laboratory  also  has  a  function,  apart  from 


454  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

scientific  discovery,  in  affording  to  many  men  that  element 
of  experience  in  mastering  nature  without  which  their  Hfe 
would  be  seriously  unbalanced.  Such  discipline  admits  men 
to  actual  appropriation  of  material  goods,  for  which  they 
would  else  have  no  adequate  sense.  Real  wealth  is  not  appre- 
ciated by  men  who  know  nothing  intimately  of  the  difficulties 
of  creating  wealth.  Wealth  as  the  measure  and  as  the  realiza- 
tion of  man's  mastery  over  things  is  neither  too  highly  nor 
too  generally  valued  in  our  civilization.  Wealth  as  the  mere 
accumulation  of  things  that  others  have  mastered  is  both  too 
highly  and  too  generally  valued.  The  materialism  of  our  day 
is  deplorable  radically  as  a  sign  of  man's  mastery  or  desire 
of  mastery  over  men,  and  of  abdication  or  willingness  to  abdi- 
cate the  real  lordship  of  things  for  this  unnatural  lordship 
over  persons. 

Personality,  like  any  other  whole,  is  the  union  of  all  its 
parts.  It  cannot  be  realized  by  a  preference  of  certain  parts 
which  amounts  to  exclusion  of  certain  other  parts.  Accord- 
ingly we  recognize,  alongside  of  health,  this  second  factor 
which  enters  into  complete  personal  realization,  viz.,  that  lord- 
ship over  things  which  is  founded  upon  direct  mastery  of  nat- 
ural forces. 

The  sense  in  which  we  urge  that  mastery  over  things  is  a 
phase  of  proper  personality,  and  thus  in  so  far  an  end  in 
itself,  may  be  illustrated  by  a  sort  of  parallel  familiar  to 
scholars.  Educated  men  pity  people  who  have  to  put  up 
with  information  without  corresponding  insight.  The  navi- 
gator or  the  accountant  who  mechanically  applies  his  table  of 
logarithms,  without  understanding  how  a  logarithm  is  derived, 
or  what  essential  relations  it  expresses ;  the  drug  clerk  who 
knows  how  to  interpret  the  signs  in  the  physician's  prescrip- 
tion, but  who  has  no  idea  why  two  substances  may  be  com- 
pounded, while  other  two  may  not;  the  voter  who  learns  the 
program  of  his  party,  but  is  impotent  to  criticise  or  to  decide 
whether  the  program  is  wise  and  just  —  each  of  these,  from 
the  scholar's  point  of  view,  is  pitiable.     They  have  the  form 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  455 

and  some  of  the  uses  of  knowledge,  without  that  wisdom 
which  is  the  completion  of  knowledge.  Real  knowledge  is 
first-hand  insight  into  the  relations  partly  expressed  by  the 
practical  information.  A  generation  that  had  forgotten  its 
mathematics  and  its  chemistry  and  its  statesmanship,  and  had 
retained  only  rules  and  formulas  and  statutes,  would  be  a 
generation  intellectually  dead.  It  would  have  the  form  of 
knowledge,  but  none  of  that  spirit  of  divination  which  is  the 
vitality  of  knowledge. 

In  a  similar  way,  a  generation  that  multiplies  material 
products,  and  glorifies  the  controllers  of  them,  while  it  exempts 
one  order  of  men  as  completely  as  possible  from  personal  mas- 
tery of  things,  and  identifies  another  order  of  men  as  com- 
pletely as  possible  with  unthinking  machine  production  of 
things,  inevitably  diminishes  in  both  classes  the  proper  exer- 
cise of  possession,  and  thus  the  appropriate  realization  of 
manhood. 

The  perception  which  we  are  now  emphasizing  is  that 
mastery  of  things  is  a  function  proper  to  complete  personality. 
Speaking  in  terms  of  the  appropriate  product  of  this  mastery, 
or  wealth  in  the  sense  in  which  we  have  used  the  word, 
wealth  is  physical  substance  and  attributes  raised  to  a  higher 
power  by  the  reinforcement  of  thought.  Wealth  is  man's 
first  realization  of  independence  among  the  world-forces. 
That  lordship  over  things  which  directly  creates  w^ealth  in 
the  popular  sense  is  more  than  proprietorship  over  matter. 
It  is  comprehension  of  matter,  insight  into  its  qualities,  per- 
ception of  its  adaptabilities,  and  consequent  personal  appro- 
priation and  control  of  its  latent  possibilities. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  argue  that  lordship  over  things 
in  this  sense  is  an  essential  social  function.  In  order  that 
human  animals  may  progress  through  the  stages  of  develop- 
ment to  which  their  endowment  foreordains  them,  somebody 
must  create  wealth  and  hold  it  subject  to  human  use.  But  our 
theorem  goes  beyond  this.  We  assert  that  the  individual  is 
incomplete  and  monstrous,  unless  the  power  and  the  practice 


456  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  the  direct  lordship  of  things  are  evident  in  him.  Wealth 
simply  held  subject  to  my  draft  is  material  toward  which  my 
relation  may  be  unnatural  and  vicious.  It  may  be  merely 
property  without  the  antecedent  conditions  of  comprehension 
and  control.  Such  proprietorship,  unless  counterbalanced  by 
some  direct  lordship  over  other  things,  tends  to  unsocialize 
and  dehumanize  men  by  assigning  to  them  a  status  manifestly 
artificial,  because  impossible  of  generalization.  The  exten- 
sion of  this  status  to  all  men  would  extinguish  society.  Proxy 
wealth  is  necessarily  impossible  as  the  universal  order.  Dele- 
gation of  the  wealth  function  is  in  principle  as  abnormal  as 
delegation  of  the  health  function.  A  man  is  not  as  fatally 
incomplete  when  others  exercise  all  the  primary  control  of 
nature  for  him,  as  he  would  be  if  he  tried  to  have  others  exer- 
cise all  the  vital  functions  for  him;  but  he  is  in  an  equally 
literal  sense  abnormal  and  artificial. 

Lordship  over  things,  in  the  sense  thus  indicated,  is 
the  satisfaction  appropriate  to  the  wealth  desire.  Self- 
realization  is  promoted  in  the  achievement  of  lordship  over 
things  by  means  of  the  candid  contact  with  nature  necessary 
to  creation  and  control.  Production  of  real  wealth  requires 
sympathetic  and  intelligent  touch  with  reality  which  is  prom- 
ise and  partial  potency  of  knowledge  and  art  and  virtue.  There 
are  very  deep  reasons  for  our  customary  epithet  "  honest "  in 
the  case  of  a  simple  laborer.  When  we  speak  of  the  "  honest 
farmer,"  the  association  of  ideas  is  with  his  matter-of-fact 
dealings  with  nature,  which  he  is  credited  with  carrying  over 
consistently  into  his  dealings  with  men.  Plis  attitude  is 
accepted  as  typical  of  all  right  human  relations  with  the  real 
world.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  man  who  deals  directly 
at  some  point  with  nature's  physical  veracities  should  become 
the  more  complete  and  genuine  man  from  the  association. 
Conversely,  exemption  from  such  relation,  or  reduction  of  it  to 
mere  brute  contact,  suspends  one  of  the  conditions  of  personal 
completeness. 

The  radical  and  inevitable  necessity  of  mastery  over  things 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  457 

by  somebody,  in  order  that  anybody  may  maintain  mere  exist- 
ence, still  more  in  order  that  anybody  may  be  more  than  an 
animal,  creates  the  most  effective  presumption  against  any 
theory  of  life  which  views  the  lordship  of  things  as  an  acci- 
dent. Any  function  which  is  essential  to  the  existence  of  the 
species  must  be  regarded  as  proper  to  the  individuals  of  the 
species,  until  reasons  for  believing  the  contrary  appear.  In 
this  case  observation  of  the  wealth  function  discovers,  not 
merely  its  necessity,  but  its  inherent  dignity.  We  cannot 
subtract  that  dignity  from  any  man  and  regard  the  remainder 
as  a  complete  man. 

For  sociological  theory,  whether  applying  to  the  remote 
past  or  to  the  immediate  present;  for  social  practice,  whether 
that  of  scholar  or  artist  or  moralist,  or  that  of  society  in 
treating  children  or  paupers  or  criminals  or  defectives,  or  of 
democracies  in  controlling  and  developing  themselves  —  the 
individual  always  and  everywhere  in  question  is  an  agent 
intensely  interested  in  compelling  nature  to  his  own  use.  We 
may  not  treat  this  incident  as  a  trivial  and  transient  foible  of 
human  character.  So  far  as  we  know,  it  betrays  an  essential 
and  permanent  trait  of  human  nature.  At  all  events,  valid 
sociological  thinking  must  accommodate  some  form  and  pro- 
portion of  this  sort  of  self-assertion  in  its  assumption  of  the 
real  individual. 

c)  The  Sociability  Interest. —  We  have  appetites  for 
personal  intercourse  of  a  purely  spiritual  sort,  without  con- 
scious reference  to  physical  contact  or  material  exchange. 
There  are  human  affinities  which  nothing  but  reaction  with 
human  beings  can  satisfy.  There  are  interchanges  of  stimu- 
lus and  satisfaction  between  persons  with  no  more  dependence 
upon,  nor  ulterior  reference  to,  any  physical  conditions  than 
the  slight  minimum  which  is  involved  in  the  analogous  case  of 
cultivation  and  enjoyment  of  music  for  its  own  sake.  In 
both  cases,  as  we  have  said  in  another  connection,^ ^  the  physi- 
cal is  the  necessary  vehicle  of  the  spiritual,  but  it  is  uncon- 

*"  Vide  above,  pp.  54,  423,  424. 


4S8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

sciously  involved,  and  a  negligible  factor  so  far  as  the  char- 
acter of  the  paramount  desire  is  concerned. 

There  are  enlargements  of  life  aside  from  advantages  that 
spring  from  use  of  the  material  things  which  men  create. 
Those  that  we  have  now  to  consider  proceed  from  spiritual 
reactions  with  other  men.  In  our  philosophies  of  justice  we 
have  confined  our  calculations  too  closely  to  relations  which 
might  be  expressed  or  measured  in  material  terms.  Moral 
theorists  have  treated  social  relations  almost  exclusively  as 
different  arrangements  into  which  men  are  assorted  by  care 
for  their  bodies  and  by  pursuit  of  purchasable  goods.  We 
have  had  individual  ethics,  or  the  principles  of  physical  and 
mental  well-being,  considering  the  person  as  an  isolated  group 
of  related  operations.  We  have  had  the  ethics  of  business,  of 
politics,  of  religion.  We  have  even  had  the  ethics  of  social 
intercourse,  considered  as  a  means  to  one  of  these  other  ends. 
But  no  one  has  made  it  evident  that  there  is  an  important 
section  of  life  made  up  of  conditions  in  which  personality  pure 
and  simple  reacts  upon  personality,  and  immediately  assists 
or  retards  normal  satisfaction.  No  one,  surely,  has  taken  the 
further  step  of  codifying  the  just  balance  of  these  purely 
spiritual  relations. 

When  we  observe  that  affinities  for  certain  personal  rela- 
tions are  manifested  by  some  men,  and  when  we  discover  the 
probability  that  these  affinities  are  latent,  if  not  patent,  in  all 
men,  we  may  thereby  reach  another  specification  in  our  analy- 
sis of  the  real  individual.  The  fact  is  that  all  men  tend  nor- 
mally to  desire  contacts  with  other  men  of  a  sort  to  gratify 
their  pure  sense  of  personality.  We  mean  by  sociability,  then, 
those  elements  in  the  relations  of  persons  which  correspond 
with  this  desire.^  ^ 

A  primary  and  simple  demand  of  the  sociability  desire 
may  be  illustrated  by  analogy  with  the  leadings  of  the  health 

"  We  have  not  yet  invented  all  the  terms  needed  to  avoid  confusion  in  this 
connection.  Thus  "  sociability  "  is  not  identical  with  "  the  social,"  as  discussed 
below,  chap.  34,  sec.  2.  It  is  one  of  the  many  forms  of  relationship  within  the 
larger  category. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  459 

desire.  Parallel  with  the  desire  for  bodily  integrity  is  an 
equally  naive  and  persistent  desire  for  personal  integrity. 
Each  man  embodies  a  claim  to  be  a  spiritual  integer,  an  undi- 
minished unit  among  like  whole  units.  The  German  term 
Selbstgcfiihl  seems  to  contain  more  traces  than  any  English 
equivalent  of  this  instinctive  impulse  to  assert  the  full  measure 
of  personality.  The  Germans  talk  also  of  pcrsdnliche  Geltung, 
"counting  for  all  that  one  is  essentially  worth,"  and  this  again 
seems  to  be  an  utterance  of  the  native  human  instinct.  The 
privilege  of  standing  over  against  his  fellow,  with  the  assured 
franchise  of  equal  freedom  of  self-expression,  is  an  implicit 
demand  of  every  unspoiled  man.  The  demand  is  not  primarily 
an  assertion  of  "  equality,"  in  the  sense  in  which  the  idea  is 
notoriously  abused  by  pseudo-democrats.  It  is  the  demand 
that,  such  as  I  am,  with  such  sort  and  size  of  merit  as  I  per- 
sonally possess,  I  may  be  permitted  to  assert  myself,  without 
suppression  or  subversion  by  the  arrogation  of  others.  The 
inherent  desire  of  each  man  to  see  himself  reflected  at  full 
length  in  his  neighbor's  eye  is  a  factor  to  be  counted  on  in 
calculation  of  every  social  equation,  just  as  positively  as  each 
individual's  desire  for  food  and  sleep.  Another  German  word 
frequently  in  proletarian  use  is  Anerkennnng.  It  loses  some 
of  its  force  when  we  render  it  "  recognition,"  because  in 
America  the  latter  term  has  narrow  political  associations.  The 
root  of  the  matter  is  desire  not  to  be  socially  discounted  in 
accordance  with  any  fictitious  scale,  but  to  be  taken  at  full 
value.  This  demand  is  a  very  real  and  strong  factor  in 
American  labor  agitations,  although  it  might  have  been  more 
clearly  expressed  and  more  consistently  urged.  "  We  want 
to  be  treated  like  men,"  means  demand,  not  alone  for  higher 
wages,  but  for  opportunity  to  be  accounted  as  men  in  the 
councils  of  men.  It  means  assertion  of  right  to  have  feelings 
respected  and  opinions  weighed  and  judgments  considered  on 
their  merits,  instead  of  having  them  summarily  quashed  at  the 
dictation  of  other  men's  interests. 

The  spontaneity  of  our  demand  for  the  privilege  of  j>er- 


46o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

sonal  integrity  may  be  detected  indirectly  in  our  involuntary 
resentment  against  violations  of  this  relation.  A  case  in  point  is 
the  custom,  long  familiar  in  royal  and  noble  families,  of  having 
in  the  castle  a  scapegoat  in  the  person  of  a  boy  of  plebeian  birth 
and  of  equal  age  with  the  heir  of  the  lordly  house.  The  mis- 
sion of  the  humbler  boy  was  to  endure  corporal  punishment 
(der  Priigeljunge)  in  place  of  the  privileged  scion.  The 
latter  was  held  to  be  too  good  to  suffer  bodily  for  his  own  mis- 
deeds, but  was  capable  of  committing  rascalities  enough  to 
keep  the  skin  of  the  human  foil  frequently  smarting.  When 
we  think  of  that  domestic  institution,  even  across  the  inter- 
vening time  and  space,  we  are  conscious  of  indignation,  not 
chiefly  on  account  of  the  physical  afifliction,  but  because  of  the 
outrage  against  the  personal  integrity  of  the  base-born  boy. 
He  was  denied  the  individuality  which  distinguishes  man 
from  matter.  He  was  forbidden  to  be  a  self,  responsible  for 
his  deed  and  accountable  for  his  fault.  He  was  stunted  in 
moral  stature.  His  sense  of  justice  was  stultified.  His  pos- 
session of  sentiment  like  that  of  other  human  beings  was 
ignored.  He  was  denied  the  right  to  develop  as  a  man,  and 
was  turned  into  a  wolf  or  a  sheep. 

The  judgment  of  history  upon  American  slavery  will 
doubtless  emphasize  the  same  element,  while  it  recognizes 
that  the  slaves  as  a  rule  had  ampler  security  of  their  standard 
of  physical  welfare  than  many  free  populations  enjoy.  Exclu- 
sion from  the  franchise  of  personal  integrity  condemned  the 
system  which  so  liberally  guaranteed  bodily  integrity.  The 
radical  evil  of  our  present  wage  system  is  not  that  it  permits 
inequality  of  distribution,  but  that  the  inequality  is  so  largely 
an  index  of  an  arbitrary  personal  inequality,  which  gives  arti- 
ficial weight  to  the  will  of  some  persons  and  artificially  counts 
out  the  will  of  others.  Human  nature  unsubdued  by  social 
veto  instinctively  asserts  for  each  indix  idual  a  distinct  inviolate 
dignity.  As  Fichte  expresses  it :  "  The  marrow  of  the  idea 
of  justice  is  that  each  man  has  an  e(|ual  claim  with  every 
other  man  upon  the  full  development  of  himself."  ^^ 

"Ethik,  Vol.  I,  p.  19. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  461 

Closely  related  with  this  instinct  of  personal  integrity,  and 
intimately  involved  in  its  realization,  is  a  social  claim  which 
may  be  called,  in  the  absence  of  a  better  term,  the  craving  for 
reciprocal  valuation,  A  variation  of  this  impulse  manifests 
itself  in  manifold  demands  for  functional  valuation,  all 
impelled  at  one  point  by  the  distinctively  social  desire,  but  all 
sooner  or  later  resolving  themselves,  with  all  the  other  human 
impulses,  into  functions  of  all  the  others.  Both  Emerson  and 
Carlyle  have  rung  changes  upon  portions  of  this  theme.  The 
dictum,  "  No  man  can  be  heroic  except  in  an  heroic  world," 
and  the  theory  that  we  worship  great  men  because  they  express 
to  us  our  implicit  selves,  and  help  toward  due  valuation  of 
ourselves,  with  possibly  similar  appraisal  in  other  minds,  both 
posit  the  desire  for  social  valuation  to  which  we  are  calling 
attention.  The  society  in  which  the  individual  might  most 
completely  achieve  himself  would  be  in  part  a  mutual- 
admiration  society.  Each  member's  potential  excellence  would 
be  helped  into  actuality  by  each  other  member's  recognition 
of  the  partially   realized   excellence. 

Without  having  attempted  a  final  analysis  of  the  socia- 
bility desire,  we  have  indicated  by  these  two  marks  certain 
qualitative  traits  of  a  distinct  factor  in  human  individuality. 
It  develops  in  other  directions,  to  be  sure,  as  in  ambition  for 
prestige  among  men  and  for  power  over  men ;  but  we  have 
sufficiently  indicated  distinctive  marks  of  this  factor.  If  some 
extraordinary  provision  could  be  made  for  the  wants  of  a 
human  being,  aside  from  satisfactions  of  sociability,  the  abun- 
dance of  all  things  else  would  not  prevent  ultimate  discovery 
of  a  radical  lack.  Assertion  of  personality  in  distinction  from 
other  personality,  and  exchange  of  recognitions  of  personal 
valuation,  are  as  proper  incidents  of  human  satisfaction  as 
supply  of  the  bodily  demand  for  food  and  air. 

d)  The  Knowledge  Interest. —  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  insist  upon  the  abstract  proposition  that  the  human  indi- 
vidual wants  to  know.  We  encounter  incredulity  only  when 
we  try  to  follow  the  implications  of  the  universal  knowledge 


462  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

desire,  in  case  they  begin  to  reveal  indications  of  larger  des- 
tiny for  all  men  than  the  present  state  of  knowledge  permits. 
Without  pursuing  inquiry  very  far  in  this  direction,  we  may 
briefly  enter  another  detail  in  our  specifications  of  the  real 
individual. 

It  would  doubtless  be  entirely  superfluous  to  argue  with 
any  reader  of  this  syllabus  that  knowledge  is  good  both  as 
a  means  to  other  goods,  and  also  as  an  activity  of  the  person, 
without  reference  to  any  ulterior  end.  Whether  the  judg- 
ment is  susceptible  of  logical  confirmation  or  not,  it  is  part 
and  parcel  of  modern  men's  thinking,  and  few  people  would 
care  to  waste  their  time  in  seeking  proofs  for  a  perception  so 
direct  and  clear.  A  machine  is  at  its  best  when  part  so  plays 
into  part  that  the  total  function  of  the  machine  is  performed. 
A  man  is  not  at  his  best  until  he  is  able  to  think  all  that  he 
does,  and  to  follow  all  his  conditions  and  actions  with  intel- 
lectual comprehension.     As  Schiller  expressed  it : 

Denn,  wer  den  Sinn  auf's  Ganze  halt  gerichtet, 
Dem  ist  der  Streit  in  seiner  Brust  geschlichtet. 

— "  Die   Huldigung  der   Kiinste." 

Every  man  above  the  level  of  idiocy  has  to  know  some- 
thing in  order  to  act  at  all.  No  man  can  know  all  that  the 
rest  of  men  know.  Between  the  extremes  of  nescience  and 
omniscience  there  must  be  a  typical  condition  of  knowledge 
for  the  normal  man.  What  is  the  indicated  condition  of  the 
knowing  process  for  the  individual  who  is  achieving  himself 
in  a  healthy  way,  and  for  a  society  that  is  progressing? 

If  we  think  of  knowledge  primarily  as  a  means  to  other 
elements  of  living,  our  judgment  about  the  working  ratio 
between  this  clement  and  the  others  is  that  knowledge  is  not 
in  due  proportion  until  it  is  sufficient  to  insure  the  standard 
of  life  appropriate  to  the  individual  in  question;  or,  what 
amounts  to  the  same  thing,  until  it  is  sufficient  to  insure  the 
persistence  of  the  social  process  at  the  point  where  the  given 
individual  functions.     One  is  not  a  well-working  socius  unless 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  463 

one  has  the  knowledge  necessary  to  provide  for  self-conduct 
of  one's  own  part  of  the  social  process.  This  is  the  conception, 
by  the  way,  on  which  the  American  public  school  implicitly 
rests. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  think  of  knowledge  as  a  portion 
of  self-achievement  which  has  implications  of  its  own,  apart 
from  its  bearings  upon  other  phases  of  life,  the  ideal  of  knowl- 
edge is  in  a  sense  inverted.y  Knowledge  for  the  sake  of  a 
process  outside  of  itself  calls  for  a  focusing  of  all  reality  that 
can  be  made  available  upon  the  particular  process  for  which 
the  knowing  person  is  responsible.  On  the  other  hand,  knowl- 
edge as  an  achievement  by  itself  calls  for  a  going  out  in 
thought  as  far  as  possible  from  the  thinker's  personal  func- 
tion, and  a  discovering  of  the  content  and  meaning  of  as 
much  as  possible  of  the  whole  life-process,  within  which  the 
thinker  occupies  a  place.  There  is  no  antithesis  at  last,  except 
a  rhetorical  one,  between  these  two  aspects  of  the  knowing 
function;  but  this  view  of  them  affords  a  clue  to  the  two 
kinds  of  valuation  that  we  actually  pass  upon  the  knowledge 
element  in  conduct.  Knowledge  as  a  means  of  maintaining 
the  standard  of  life  is  practically  demanded  by  everybody. 
Knowledge  as  vision  of  the  meaning  of  life,  and  of  what  the 
standard  of  life  should  be,  is  needed  by  everybody,  but  is  in 
far  less  general  demand. 

So  far  as  human  relations  are  concerned,  the  largest  con- 
crete conception  which  our  minds  can  represent  in  detail  is  the 
persistence  and  the  expansion  of  the  life-process  of  which  we 
find  ourselves  to  be  parts.  We  have  a  vague  conception  of 
this  system  of  relations  as  in  its  turn  an  incident  in  a  greater 
cosmic  process,  or  a  stage  in  the  progress  toward  a  "  far-off 
divine  event."  This,  however,  shapes  itself  in  our  imagination 
as  little  more  in  detail  than  we  discover  actually  or  potentially 
in  the  social  process.  The  latter  includes  all  the  reality  which 
we  have  the  means  of  thinking  specifically.  Accordingly,  our 
valuations  of  knowledge  tend  to  scale  up  and  down  from  the 
meaning  of  the  nearest  details  of  our  individual  lives,  at  the 


464  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

one  extreme,  to  the  largest  correlations  of  the  total  life-process, 
past,  present,  and  future,  at  the  other.  It  is  necessary  to  the 
integrity  of  the  social  process  that  the  whole  process  shall 
reduce  itself  in  my  knowing  to  that  kind  and  measure  of  appre- 
hension which  enables  me  to  be  my  particular  kind  of  actor  in 
the  whole  process.  It  is  essential  to  the  complete  integrity  of 
my  individual  self  that,  in  my  knowing,  the  conditions  and 
contents  of  the  whole  social  process  shall  be  constantly  arran- 
ging themselves  more  in  accordance  with  objective  fact,  and 
constantly  expanding  toward  juster  and  completer  comprehen- 
sion of  the  all  within  which  I  perform  a  part.  The  whole  social 
process  thus  realizes  itself  through  the  intelligence  of  the  indi- 
vidual, while  the  individual  process,  in  its  intellectual  phase, 
realizes  itself  through  progressive  mental  representation  of 
the  whole  social  process.  The  knowledge  interest  has  there- 
fore no  limit  short  of  complete  comprehension,  not  merely  of 
the  social  process,  but  of  the  cosmic  process. 

e)  The  Beauty  Interest. —  Frank  confession  of  incom- 
petence to  discuss  this  portion  of  the  subject  will  excuse  fail- 
ure to  give  it  proportionate  emphasis.  The  theorem  which 
this  chapter  is  developing  is  that  the  actions  of  all  men  of 
whom  record  is  preserved  have  betrayed  impulses  which  may 
be  traced  to  six  implicit  interests,  or  six  more  manifest  derived 
desires.  -  We  may  recognize  the  aesthetic  desire,  and  we  may 
be  familiar  with  some  of  the  conduct  which  it  prompts,  with- 
out venturing  to  expound  its  implications.  A  literature  of  the 
beauty  interest  is  rapidly  developing;  and  the  psychology  and 
the  sociology  of  feeling  will  doubtless  be  as  thoroughly  exam- 
ined in  the  future  as  the  psychology  and  sociology  of  knowing 
and  willing.  Meanwhile,  a  sociologist  who  is  most  painfully 
aware  of  his  own  incompleteness  in  this  section  of  life  may 
register  the  bare  intellectual  perception  that  life,  at  its  largest, 
involves  feeling  of  the  aesthetic  type,  and  conduct  aimed  at 
satisfaction  of  the  feeling.  In  this  case  again  the  element  in 
question  is  both  a  means  to  other  elements  of  life,  and  an 
activity  to  be  regarded  as  having  a  distinct  and  self-sufficient 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  465 

value  in  the  scheme  of  factors  that  compose  the  individual. 
In  the  fragment  just  quoted,  Schiller  put  the  present  thesis  in 
lyric  form,  when  he  made  the  Spirit  of  Beauty  address  the 
Princess  of  Weimar : 

Ich  bin  der  schaffende  Genius  des  Schonen, 

Und  die  mir  folget  ist  der  Kiinste  Schaar. 

Wir  sind's,  die  alle  Menschenwerke  kronen, 

Wir  schmiicken  den  Palast  und  den  Altar. 

Langst  wohnten  wir  bei  deinem  Kaiserstamme, 

Und  sie,  die  Herrliche,  die  dich  gebar, 
Sie  nahrt  uns  selbst  die  heil'ge  Opferflamme 

Mit  reiner  Hand  auf  ihrem  Hausaltar. 
Wir  sind  dir  nachgefolgt,  von  ihr  gesendet; 
Denn  alles  Gliick  wird  nur  durch  uns  vollendet. 

And  all  the  arts  join  in  chorus : 

Denn  aus  der  Krafte  schon  vereintem  Streben 
Erhebt  sich,  wirkend,  erst  das  wahre  Leben. 

/)  The  Rightness  Interest. —  It  would  be  easy  to  make 
this  item  in  our  schedule  a  pretext  for  an  excursion  into  the 
metaphysics  and  the  psychology  of  ethics  and  religion.  Soci- 
ology will  at  last  contribute  in  its  own  way  to  these  subjects, 
but  it  is  a  far  cry  from  the  elements  with  which  we  are  now 
dealing  to  the  conclusions  sought  by  ethical  and  religious 
philosophy.  We  should  defeat  our  present  purpose  if  we 
attempted  to  anticipate  results  in  these  territories.  Our  pres- 
ent proposition  is  not  speculative.  Like  the  substance  of  our 
claim  under  each  of  the  preceding  five  heads,  it  is  simply  a 
generalization  of  facts  that  appear  to  be  universal  in  the  human 
individual.  If  they  are  not  universal,  the  variations  are  to  be 
accounted  for  by  conditions  which  do  not  affect  the  fact  that 
the  traits  so  specified  belong  to  the  typical  human  person. 

We  have  seen  that  men  act  with  reference  to  ends  which 
prove  to  be  health  or  wealth  or  sociability  or  knowledge  or 
beauty,  or  their  possible  compounds.  But  this  schedule  does 
not  include  all  the  groups  of  stimuli  that  procure  conscious 
human  action.  There  remain  activities  which  traverse  the 
territory  of  all  these  desires,  yet  to  the  consciousness  of  the 


466  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

actors  the  choices  involved  in  them  are  not  for  the  sake  of 
satisfactions  of  either  sort  yet  specified.  In  brief,  men  always 
manifest  some  species  of  premonition  of  a  self  somehow 
superior  to  their  realized  self,  or  of  a  whole  outside  of  them- 
selves with  which  it  is  desirable  to  adjust  the  self.  We  will 
not  inquire  here  whether  these  two  states  of  consciousness  are 
simultaneous  or  consecutive,  or  whether  they  are  equally 
important.  Enough  for  the  present  that  similar  consequences 
proceed  from  both.  This  superior  self  is  a  more  or  less  vague 
image  of  the  conscious  self,  somehow  amplified  by  addition 
of  activities  beyond  those  of  the  actual  self.  The  whole  partly 
detected  around  the  self  is  not  the  commonplace  of  people 
and  things  that  the  routine  of  life  encounters.  It  is  the  mys- 
terious more  that  broods  in  and  over  the  familiar  surround- 
ings. The  real  individual  is  at  last,  in  one  fraction  of  his  per- 
sonality, a  wistfulness  after  that  other  self,  or  a  deference 
to  that  inscrutable  whole.  In  other  words,  there  are  distinct 
sorts  of  human  action  which  are  impelled  primarily  not  by 
supposed  demand  for  health,  or  wealth,  or  sociability,  or 
knowledge,  or  beauty;  but  they  are  to  be  accounted  for  as 
conscious  or  unconscious  efforts  either  to  become  the  larger 
self  or  to  be  adjusted  to  the  containing  whole. 

We  deliberately  avoid  implication  that  the  desire  with 
which  we  are  dealing  has  originally  any  moral  content  in  the 
subjective  sense.  To  hold  that  from  the  beginning  the  feeling 
of  oughtness  goes  with  this  half-consciousness  of  an  immanent 
self,  or  with  rudimentary  cosmic  perception,  is  pure  specula- 
tion. We  do  not  know  the  facts.  What  we  do  know  is  that  in 
the  most  elementary  manifestations  which  we  are  able  to  trace 
of  the  feeling  of  oughtness.  or  conscience,  as  a  meaning  factor 
in  men's  activities,  it  gets  in  its  work  by  means  of  this  pre- 
monition of  a  superior  self,  or  by  means  of  some  presumption 
which  reduces  to  an  assumption  atout  the  containing  whole. 
"Ought"  is  sanctioned  by  the  sovereignty  either  of  the 
imagined  self  or  of  the  posited  whole. 

Whether  the  sense  of  oughtness  is  intuitive,  or  an  evolu- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  467 

tion  from  purely  egoistic  judg-ment  of  utility,  we  find  it  oper- 
ating first  and  chiefest  in  connection  with  those  personal  rela- 
tions which  are  most  remote  and  mysterious.  The  thing  which 
the  naive  man  feels  that  he  "ought"  to  do  is  the  thing  which 
has  least  visible  connection  with  the  kinds  of  action  that 
appeal  directly  to  the  individual.  Obligation  is  apparently 
not  at  first  an  incident  of  action  within  the  realm  where  cause 
and  effect  are  understood.  The  sense  of  duty  does  not  at 
first  apply  in  the  region  of  known  utilities.  "  Ought "  is  an 
oracle  out  of  the  unknown,  or  the  vaguely  known,  and  satis- 
factions within  this  sphere  arise  from  belief  that  somehow  the 
self  has  adjusted  inscrutable  conditions,  which  insure  the  desir- 
able surplus  of  well-being  beyond  that  which  can  be  specifi- 
cally imagined,  or  which  can  be  procured  by  conduct  whose 
relation  to  ends  is  supposed  to  be  a  matter  of  course.^  ^ 

It  turns  out  that  both  naive  and  reflective  men  have  sooner 
or  later  come  to  cherish  the  idea  of  a  sphere  of  human  activity 
the  content  of  which  is  a  rightness  which  has  an  existence 
independent  of  other  departments  of  human  conduct  or  condi- 
tion. Even  today  it  is  in  comparatively  rare  instances  only 
that  rightness  is  thought  as  a  quality  of  conduct  proper  to  all 
action  that  deserves  any  place  in  human  life,  and  as  having  no 
content  apart  from  such  ordinary  action.  The  savage,  per- 
forming mummeries  which  are  senseless^  except  for  the  fiction 
that  they  are  agreeable  to  the  fetich,  is  merely  a  less  intellec- 
tual Kant  finding  the  oughtness  of  the  ought  simply  in  its 
being  categorical.  We  have  only  lately  learned,  and  only  a 
few  of  us  have  learned  yet,  that  there  is  no  supposed  impera- 
tive, whether  from  the  assumed  source  of  absolute  obligation 
or  elsewhere,  which  can  be  obeyed  without  setting  in  motion 
antecedents  and  consequents  within  the  known  realm  of  health, 
or  wealth,  or  sociability,  or  knowledge,  or  beauty. 

This  fact,  however,  is  steadily  recasting  the  precepts  of  for- 

^^  Ratzenhofer  (Sociologische  Erkenntniss,  p.  64)  uses  the  term  the 
"  transcendental  interest."  His  analysis  does  not  precisely  coincide  with  the 
above,  but  the  differences  are  probably  unimportant. 


468  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

mal  morality  in  terms  of  declared  utility.  It  remains  true 
that,  with  all  the  past  men  of  whom  record  survives,  and  with 
all  living  men  in  the  civilized  world,  the  conception  of  a  dis- 
tinct Tightness  sphere,  separated  not  merely  in  quality  but  in 
content  from  other  spheres  of  human  conduct,  has  been  a 
tremendous  positive,  or  at  least  negative,  influence.  It  is  not 
at  all  necessary  to  an  understanding  of  the  human  individual 
up  to  date  to  decide  whether  there  is  an  actual  realm  for 
rightness  apart  from  conduct  in  the  spheres  where  men  gain 
health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  and  beauty  satisfac- 
tions. This  is  a  capital  problem  in  its  proper  place,  but  its 
solution  would  not  in  the  least  affect  the  terms  of  the  analysis 
that  describes  today's  individual.  If  we  discover  that  the 
only  possible  content  for  the  formal  concept  "  rightness "  is 
fit  conduct  within  the  other  realms,  it  remains  true  that  men 
have  very  seldom  so  distributed  the  idea.  To  most  men, 
whether  they  merely  acquiesce  in  authority,  or  reason  for  them- 
selves, rightness  is  an  activity  with  a  content  as  peculiarly  its 
own  as  the  realm  of  the  health  activities.  The  conception 
therefore  has  played  and  does  play  as  important  a  part  among 
human  impulses  as  though  there  were  no  question  about  its 
perfect  co-ordination  with  the  other  objects  of  human  desire. 
However  we  construe  the  content  appropriate  to  the  right- 
ness interest,  more  precise  analysis  of  the  interest  as  such  will 
ratify  its  authority  and  reinforce  its  sanctions.  It  will  dis- 
cover its  sphere  more  and  more  definitely,  however,  within  the 
ascertained  scope  of  definable  utility.^  ^ 

"  This  analysis  of  the  individual  should  be  compared  with  that  of  Spencer, 
Principles  of  Sociology,  Vol.  I,  p.  426.  It  is  also  worth  while  to  quote  again 
from  the  same  passage,  as  a  commentary  upon  our  earlier  reference  (above, 
pp.  99,  100),  Spencer's  formula  of  the  "  scope  of  sociology,"  viz.:  "  Setting  out 
with  units  thus  conditioned,  as  thus  constituted,  physically,  emotionally,  and 
intellectually,  and  as  thus  possessed  of  certain  early  acquired  notions  and 
correlative  feelings,  the  science  of  sociology  has  to  give  an  account  of  all  the 
phenomena  that  result  from  their  combined  actions."  Thus,  as  we  remarked 
before,  it  is  an  entire  misconception  to  suppose  that  sociology  neglects  the 
individual.  However  sociologists  may  differ  in  their  analyses  of  the  individual, 
they  know,  and  they  have  always  known,  that  at  last  the  individual  is,  in  some 
aspect  or  other,  their  sole  subject-matter. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  469 

We  may  now  add  a  little  to  the  distinctness  of  the  propo- 
sitions at  the  close  of  the  last  chapter.  So  far  as  we  have  any 
knowledge  of  human  experience,  the  career  of  men,  either  as 
individuals  or  as  grpups,  has  always  been  a  process  of  getting 
content,  correlation,  and  satisfaction  for  the  desires  after 
health,  and  wealth,  and  sociability,  and  knowledge,  and  beauty, 
and  rightness.^^  A  first  consequence  of  this  perception,  so  far 
as  it  affects  method,  is  that  it  sets  us  the  task  of  learning  how 
to  find  the  real  individuals  concerned,  when  we  undertake  to 
investigate  a  social  situation,  past  or  present.^  ^  It,  further- 
more, sets  the  task  of  discovering  the  actual  output  of  the 
institutions  maintained  by  the  association  in  question  for  the 
service  of  the  desires.  It  is  doubtful  if  these  conditions  have 
ever  been  satisfied,  in  any  single  instance  of  first-rate  impor- 
tance. Our  historical  exhibits  are,  consequently,  as  a  rule, 
utterly  inadequate  sources  for  the  sort  of  conclusions  that  the 
sociologists,  and  even  the  historians,  want  to  draw. 

In  order  to  be  justified  in  assuming  causal  explanations 
of  human  experience,  we  must  in  every  case  be  able  to  make 
out  the  approximate  content  and  combination  of  these  variable 
desires  in  the  particular  individuals  concerned.  We  must 
know,  on  the  other  hand,  the  workings  of  the  several  groups 
of  institutions  that  have  their  reason  for  existence  in  their 
service  to  these  desires.  More  than  this,  we  cannot  avoid 
valuation  of  the  life-processes,  past  and  present.  We  are 
bound  to  make  the  whole  process,  as  we  observe  it,  pass  judg- 
ment upon  those  kinds  and  proportions  of  satisfaction  which 
the  persons  concerned  enjoy  in  the  health,  and  wealth,  and 
sociability,  and  knowledge,  and  beauty,  and  rightness  realms. 
The  form  of  judgment  which  sociology  aims  at  authority  to 

"  At  the  close  of  his  essay  qn  "  Resources,"  Emerson  says  :  "  The  healthy, 
the  civil,  the  industrious,  the  learned,  the  moral  race  —  Nature  herself  only 
yields  her  secret  to  these."  He  had  plainly  enough  implied  also  the  aesthetic 
category,  in  the  same  essay,  which  thus  amounts  to  an  assertion  of  very  nearly 
our  present  thesis,  with  equivalents  for  each  of  our  six  terms. 

"  That  is,  we  have  to  find  out  as  much  as  possible  about  the  precise 
assortment  of  desires  present  in  the  persons  in  question. 


470  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

pass  upon  any  piece  of  social  conduct  is  this:  The  co)idiict  in 
question  does  or  does  not  make  for  the  most  and  the  best 
development,  adjustment,  and  satisfaction  of  the  six  divisions 
of  interest  knozcn  to  be  typically  human.  If  none  but  respon- 
sible men  presumed  to  represent  sociology,  it  would  be  gratui- 
tous to  confess  that  social  science  is  at  present  very  far  from 
competence  to  sanction  such  appraisals,  except  on  the  most 
restricted  scale,  and  even  then  in  cautiously  tentative  shape. 
The  judgment  of  the  most  mature  sociologist  about  the  tend- 
ency of  concrete  social  conditions  is  at  least  no  more  certain 
to  be  correct  than  the  prediction  of  an  experienced  sailor  about 
tomorrow's  weather. 

We  pass  from  our  qualitative  account  of  individuals  to 
brief  consideration  of  certain  social  meanings  of  the  indi- 
vidual. We  may  repeat  that  the  plot  of  the  whole  human 
drama  begins  to  appear  so  soon  as  another  interest  beside  the 
health  interest  begins  to  draw  one  specimen  out  of  the  mass 
of  the  human  pack,  and  make  an  individual  of  him.  Tlie 
drama  starts  first  in  his  own  person.  It  begins  with  the  chal- 
lenge of  one  interest  by  another.  We  may  summarize  the 
human  animal  as  a  digesting  machine.  Presently  this  machine 
begins  to  feel  impulses  that  compete  with  unlimited  digestion, 
and  henceforth  human  history  is  in  the  making.  It  is  first 
and  foremost  a  process  of  individual-building.  One  interest 
after  another  appears  upon  the  scene  and  defies  the  primal 
interest.  The  actors  in  the  drama  have  to  acquire  their  own 
character  as  the  plot  proceeds.  No  one  has  yet  traced,  except 
in  imagination,  the  actual  course  of  events  by  which  a  dead 
level  of  sameness,  like  that  in  a  fisher  tribe  of  Es4<imos,  turns 
into  the  stratified  group,  in  which  a  few  individuals  have  set 
loose  their  interest  in  exploiting  their  fellows,  and  have  become 
tyrants,  fighters,  rulers.^ ^  In  general,  the  interest  that  makes 
for  the  running  of  a  digestive  machine  evidently  splits  up  at 
first  into  direct  and  indirect  supply  of  digestive  material.   Then 

"  Professor  W.  I.  Thomas  is  throwinp  much  light  upon  this  stage  of  the 
human  drama  in  his  studies  of  social  origins. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  47i 

the  process  of  individual-building  rapidly  becomes  more  com- 
plicated. The  interest  in  supply  of  digestive  material  by  indi- 
rection subdivides  and  transforms  itself  till  its  relation  to  the 
digestive  interest  passes  from  notice.  There  comes  a  time, 
indeed,  when  the  individual  seems  to  be  made  up  of  two  inter- 
ests directly  antagonistic  with  each  other.  One  phase  of  analy- 
sis of  the  human  individual  at  this  stage  appears  in  the  familiar 
concepts  of  early  Christian  philosophy.  Human  beings  were 
thought  of  as  so  many  seething  mixtures  of  flesh  and  spirit. 
St.  Paul's  conception  of  tli^  war  in  his  members,  between  the 
evil  and  the  good,  is  a  version  of  the  same  analysis.  The  ani- 
mal interest  finds  itself  written  down,  not  as  a  factor  in  man, 
but  as  a  foe  to  man;  and  all  the  other  interests  that  dispute 
monopoly  with  the  health  interest  are  grouped  together  as  the 
rightful  elements  in  human  nature. 

Now,  the  real  plot  of  the  human  drama  is  epitomized  over 
and  over  again,  from  the  earliest  days  to  the  latest,  in  the 
making  of  an  individual.  The  whole  thing  in  a  nutshell  is  the 
struggle  of  each  distinct  interest  to  express  itself  to  the  utmost 
in  the  individual,  or  later  in  the  society  that  individuals  build. 
The  Idea  which  we  have  generalized  in  the  concept  "bad" 
or  "  evil "  reduces  to  terms  either  of  disproportion  or  displace- 
ment, or  both.  One  interest  is  perpetually  struggling  to 
express  its  full  energy,  and  its  success  would  mean  the  sup- 
pression of  the  energy  of  other  interests.  This  would  amount 
to  a  lockout  in  the  process  of  building  the  individual.  That 
process  goes  on  by  avoiding  the  lockout,  and  by  continuing 
the  work  somewhat  as  the  American  colonists  did  their  farm- 
ing in  the  pioneer  days  —  with  a  spade  in  one  hand  and  a  rifle 
in  the  other.  Interest  fighting  with  interest  changes  both,  but 
also  produces  the  individual  as  a  composition  of  both. 

Accordingly,  when  we  observe  any  actual  society  of  human 
beings,  we  observe  not  raw  material,  any  more  than  we  have 
raw  rrKiterial  in  the  thousands  of  hewn  and  numbered  blocks 
of  stone  that  are  laid  down  in  the  city  at  the  spot  where  a 
building-  is  to  stand.     The  individuals  are  rather  the  finished 


472  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

products  of  one  stage  of  labor.  Moreover,  that  part  of  the 
history  of  society  is  going  forward  at  every  later  step.  The 
individuals  are  being  remade,  by  recombinations  of  their  inter- 
ests at  every  moment.  Thus,  to  use  modern  illustrations,  the 
type  "  German  professor,"  or  "  American  girl,"  or  "  Catholic 
priest "  is  made  up  of  specimens  that  contrast  strikingly  at 
many  points  with  individuals  of  the  corresponding  type  twenty 
five  years  ago.     This  phenomenon  is  universal. 

In  a  word,  then,  the  energies  that  have  their  basis  of 
action  in  the  human  animal  differentiate  into  impidses  that 
cause  the  actions  of  that  animal  to  radiate.  The  itidividiial 
that  conies  into  being  through  this  differentiation  is  the  result- 
ant of  the  different  interests  that  zvrestle  zvith  each  other  in 
his  personality.  The  career  of  that  individual,  and  of  all  indi- 
viduals combined,  is  persistent  struggle,  on  the  one  hand,  of 
the  interests  in  the  individual,  by  virtue  of  zvhich  he  is  what 
he  is  at  any  moment,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the  combina- 
tion of  interests  in  one  individual  zvith  the  combination  of 
interests  in  all  the  others.  In  this  last  statement  is  another 
epitome  of  the  whole  philosophy  of  society  which  this  syllabus 
represents.^  ^ 

The  substance  of  the  facts  at  this  point  is  this :  The  indi- 
vidual whom  we  actually  find  in  nearly,  if  not  quite,  all  stages 
of  social  growth,  even  the  rudest,  is  a  compound  of  the  health, 

"  This  explanation  was  called  out  by  a  criticism  which  my  colleague,  Pro- 
fessor Mead,  recently  offered  upon  the  present  argument.  He  urged  that  I 
started  my  theory  of  society  without  accounting  for  the  individual,  the  working 
unit  of  society.  I  have  never  felt  that  this  was  the  business  of  the  sociologist. 
It  belongs  rather  to  the  psychologist.  Mr.  Mead  insisted,  however,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  draw  such  a  sharp  line  between  psychology  and  sociology.  With 
that  I  quite  agree.  I  do  not  think  it  is  worth  while  to  debate  about  division  of 
labor  so  long  as  it  is  clear  that  a  piece  of  work  ought  to  be  done.  I  have  always 
taken  this  process  of  individual-building  for  granted,  and  have  preferred  to 
leave  it  to  the  psychologists  for  analysis,  because  they  are  presumably  so  much 
better  fitted  for  it  than  the  sociologists.  This  stage  of  human  development  is 
fundamental,  however,  and  must  be  kept  in  mind  by  everyone  who  wants  to 
vmderstand  society.  I  am  glad  that  Mr.  Mead  called  attention  to  it  as  he  did, 
and  hope  the  psychologists  will  carry  the  analysis  farther  than  I  can.  Cf. 
above,  p.  428. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  473 

wealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  beauty,  and  Tightness  inter- 
ests. In  the  life  of  each  individual  the  exponents  and  the 
coefficients  of  each  of  these  interests  change  their  value  in 
countless  ways.  Thus  Augustine,  the  type  of  the  fourth- 
century  libertine,  had  become  at  the  opening  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, with  thirty  years  still  to  live,  the  typical  church  father 
of  the  Middle  Ages;  so  Loyola,  from  vicious,  quarrelsome 
soldier,  to  founder  of  the  Jesuits;  Thomas  a  Becket,  from 
luxurious  courtier,  to  archbishop  of  Canterbury;  or  the  peas- 
ant immigrant  to  the  United  States,  who  is  soon  a  full-fledged 
American  citizen.  One  term  in  the  series  of  human  events 
is  always  the  struggle  that  is  going  on  within  the  individuals 
for  change  in  the  relative  value  of  their  dififerent  interests. 
The  outcome  of  this  subjective  struggle  is  the  changed  value 
of  the  individual  in  the  social  struggle,  which  reproduces  the 
individual  process  on  a  larger  scale. 

Nothing  more  clearly  signalizes  the  difference  between 
present  sociology  and  the  older  philosophies  of  history,  than 
the  matter-of-fact  analysis  which  we  now  make  of  the  per- 
sons who  compose  society.  We  do  not  deal  with  the  meta- 
physical conception  of  a  fictitious  individual,  on  the  one  hand, 
nor  are  we,  on  the  other  hand,  any  longer  speculating  about 
"  society,"  as  though  it  were  an  alYair  independent  of  persons, 
and  leading  a  singular  and  superior  order  of  life  apart  from 
persons.  We  see  that  human  society  in  all  times  and  places 
is  the  combined  activities  of  persons  who  react  upon  each 
other  in  countless  ways.  It  becomes  a  first  consideration,  then, 
to  derive  a  thoroughly  objective,  positive,  literal  conception 
of  these  personal  units,  always  creating  social  situations  and 
social  reactions. 

Social  philosophy,  as  hinted  in  the  beginning  of  this  chap- 
ter, has  always  vibrated  between  theories  of  individuals, 
regarded  as  independent,  self-sufficient  existences,  and  theories 
of  society,  regarded  as  an  entity  which  has  its  existence  either 
altogether  independent  of  individuals,  or  at  least  by  and 
through    the    merging   and    the    submerging   of    individuals. 


474  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Accordingly,  the  question  has  been  debated  from  time  imme- 
morial :  "  Does  society  exist  for  the  individual  or  the  indi- 
vidual for  society?"  or,  more  specifically:  "Does  the  State 
exist  for  the  individual  or  the  individual  for  the  State?"  In 
contrast  with  all  the  forms  of  philosophy  which  propose  prob- 
lems of  this  sort,  it  is  a  primary  deliverance  of  the  process- 
conception  of  life  that  the  issue  raised  by  these  inquiries  is 
essentially  artificial  and  fictitious,  because  the  dilemma  pre- 
sented is  created  only  by  a  begging  of  the  real  question.  It  is 
assumed  that  there  is  a  disjunctive,  alternative,  exclusive  rela- 
tion between  individuals  and  societies.  At  best  the  one  is 
assumed  to  be  merely  a  means  to  the  other,  in  such  a  sense 
that  the  means  ceases  to  be  of  account  when  it  has  done  what 
it  can  toward  the  end.  It  is  impossible  to  criticise  in  full 
this  way  of  looking  at  things,  without  using  concepts  which 
need  previous  explanation  —  concepts  which  we  shall  reach 
presently.  It  is  also  impossible  to  say  whether  the  psycholo- 
gists or  the  sociologists  have  had  most  to  do  with  discovering 
this  fallacy.  However  this  may  be,  the  formulation  of  life 
in  terms  of  activity  has  brought  psychologists  and  sociolo- 
gists to  the  point  of  view  that  individuals  and  societies  are  not 
means  to  each  other,  but  phases  of  each  other.  A  society  is 
a  combining  of  the  activities  of  persons.  A  person  is  a  center 
of  conscious  impulses  which  realize  themselves  in  full  only  in 
realizing  a  society. 

Quite  recently  there  has  betn  revived  discussion  of 
Aristotle's  dictum,  "  man  is  a  social  animal."  It  has  been 
asserted  and  denied  that  Aristotle  was  right.' **  Whether 
or  not  Aristotle  meant  to  express  what  we  now  see  to  be  the 
truth  may  be  left  to  those  who  care  for  such  details.  That 
there  is  a  sense,  and  an  important  one.  in  which  man  is  a 
social  animal,  is  a  primary  sociological  datum.  Man  cannot 
be  man  without  acting  and  reacting  with  man.  The  presence 
of  others  is  necessary  in  order  that  I  may  be  myself.  The 
self  that   is  potential   in  me  cannot  become  aware  of  itself, 

"  Cf.  Ward,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  VII,  pp.  651-53. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  475 

and  display  itself,  except  by  means  of  reaction  with  other 
people.  Just  as  the  mind  needs  the  body  in  order  to  be  a 
force  in  the  world,  just  as  the  hand  needs  the  eye,  and  both 
need  the  nerves,  and  all  need  the  heart,  in  order  that  either 
may  be  its  peculiar  self,  by  doing  a  peculiar  work  in  partner- 
ship with  other  organs;  so  a  man  is  not  a  man  without  the 
reaction  and  the  reinforcement  which  partnerships  with  other 
persons  permit.  It  may  be  that  men  begin  to  occupy  their 
place,  a  little  above  the  anthropoid  ape  and  a  little  lower  than 
the  angels,  by  perpetually  fighting  with  each  other.  Whether 
this  is  the  case  or  not,  we  know  that  the  fighting  which  men 
have  done  with  each  other  has  been  among  the  means  of  devel- 
oping the  individual  and  the  social  type.  Using  the  term 
"  social,"  not  as  an  expression  of  moral  quality,  but  as  an 
index  of  reactions  between  conscious  beings,  it  is  as  literally 
true,  and  first  of  all  in  the  same  sense  true,  that  man  is  a 
social  animal,  as  that  the  eagle  is  a  bird  of  flight.  The  latter 
proposition  does  not  mean  that  the  eagle  is  born  flying.  It 
simply  means  that  the  eagle  does  not  get  to  be  an  eagle  except 
through  learning  to  fly,  and  in  the  practice  of  flying.  So  men 
are  social  animals  in  the  sense  that  they  do  not  get  to  be  men 
except  through  learning  and  practicing  the  arts  of  contact 
with  other  men. 

All  this  is  so  simple,  to  be  sure,  that  it  might  well  go 
without  saying,  if  different  kinds  of  philosophy  had  not  made 
the  seemingly  obvious  fact  a  matter  of  doubt,  dispute,  and 
confusion.  The  sociologist  needs  to  make  the  fact  clear  to 
himself  at  the  outset  of  his  attempts  to  understand  the  social 
process.  The  personal  units  that  are  the  integers  in  all  social 
combinations  are  not  of  themselves,  apart  from  such  combina- 
tions, integers  at  all.  A  brick  is  as  much  a  brick  when  it  is 
dropped  and  forgotten  on  the  way  from  the  kiln  to  the  build- 
ing, as  the  other  bricks  that  are  set  in  the  wall.  It  is  not  a 
part  of  a  structure,  but  it  has  all  its  individual  character- 
istics independent  of  other  bricks.  A  brick,  qua  brick,  is  not 
a  social  phenomenon.    A  person,  on  the  contrary,  cannot  come 


476  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

into  physical  existence  except  through  the  co-operation  of 
parent  persons;  he  cannot  become  a  self-sustaining  animal 
unless  protected  for  several  years  by  other  persons;  and  he 
cannot  find  out  and  exercise  his  capabilities  unless  stimulated 
to  countless  forms  of  action  by  contact  with  other  persons. 
The  personal  units  in  society,  then,  are  units  that  in  countless 
ways  depend  upon  each  other  for  possession  of  their  own  per- 
sonality. They  find  themselves  in  each  other.  They  continu- 
ally seek  each  other.  They  perpetually  realize  themselves  by 
means  of  each  other. 

We  might  go  on  to  show  that,  to  a  considerable  degree, 
mere  consciousness  itself  is  an  affair  not  of  an  assumed  indi- 
vidual, existing  like  a  brick,  unrelated  to  other  bricks,  and 
independent  of  other  bricks  for  its  characteristics.  Conscious- 
ness in  itself,  or  at  least  self-consciousness,  is  not  an  indi- 
vidual but  a  social  phenomenon.  We  do  not  arrive  at  self- 
consciousness  except  by  coming  into  circuit  with  other  per- 
sons, with  whom  we  achieve  awareness  of  ourselves.^*^  For 
sociological  purposes  this  degree  of  refinement  is  unneces- 
sary. We  need  to  know  simply  that  persons  do  not  enlarge 
and  equip  and  enrich  and  exercise  their  personality  except  by 
maintaining  relations  with  other  persons.  Even  Robinson 
Crusoe  retained  a  one-sided  connection  with  society.  If, 
when  he  walked  out  of  the  surf  to  the  shore,  he  had  left 
behind  him  the  mental  habits,  the  language,  the  ideas  which 
he  had  amassed  in  contact  with  other  persons,  not  enough 
available  means  of  correlating  his  actions  would  have  remained 
to  provide  him  with  his  first  meal. 

It  must  be  observed,  further,  that  these  considerations  are 
not  mere  academic  generalities.  Some  of  the  most  intensely 
practical  public  questions  of  the  present  and  the  immediate 
future  go  back  to  premises  involved  in  the  foregoing.  Some 
of  the  sharpest  conflicts  of  opinion  and  practice  in  politics  and 
business  will  have  to  be  fought  out  on  the  lines  drawn  from 
the  base  just  indicated.     For  instance,  old-fashioned  Jeffer- 

^Vide  Baldwin,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations,  passim. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  477 

sonian  democracy  was  a  political  philosophy  which  assumed 
precisely  the  individualism  rejected  above  as  an  optical 
illusion.  All  the  modern  variations  of  Jeffersonian  democracy, 
in  spite  of  their  stalwart  and  salutary  traits,  are  weak  from 
the  implications  of  this  impossible  individual,  and  they  are 
foreordained  failures  in  just  the  proportion  in  which  they 
ignore  the  composite,  dependent,  social  character  of  the  indi- 
vidual. 

On  the  other  hand,  all  the  socialisms,  from  the  mildest  to 
the  most  radical,  unless  they  are  anarchistic  wolves  in  a  social- 
istic sheep's  clothing,  imply  the  opposite  misconception,  viz., 
that  society  is  the  only  real  existence,  and  that  the  personal 
units  have  no  separate  and  distinct  claims  or  cl^aracter  suffi- 
cient to  modify  theories  devoted  solely  to  the  perfection  of 
social  organization.  All  socialisms  tend  to  gravitate  toward 
programs  which  magnify  social  machinery,  and  minimize  the 
importance  of  the  personal  units.  All  such  questions  as 
that  of  municipal  control  of  public  utilities ;  the  relation  of  the 
State  to  education,  morals,  the  dependent  classes,  religion ;  the 
relation  of  the  public  to  corporations  and  combinations,  to 
artificial  encouragement  of  industries  by  tariffs,  patents,  trea- 
ties, and  other  devices ;  with  the  thousand  and  one  variations 
of  the  problems  continually  confronting  every  modern  com- 
munity; imply  and  involve  assumptions  about  the  relation  of 
society  as  a  whole  to  the  personal  units.  Of  course,  very  few 
persons  will  bring  these  fundamental  considerations,  in  their 
naked  philosophical  form,  into  the  arena  of  practical  politics 
or  business;  but  every  person  who  influences  politics  or  busi- 
ness willj  consciously  or  unconsciously,  throw  into  the  scale 
the  weight  of  his  prejudice  about  this  matter  of  the  personal 
unit  vs.  the  social  whole.  The  sort  of  work  that  the  sociolo- 
gist has  to  do  is  needed  as  a  means  of  reducing  the  weight  of 
both  kinds  of  prejudice,  and  of  substituting  for  each  a  just  con- 
ception of  the  intrinsic  relation  between  the  personal  units  and 
the  social  whole. 

Accordingly,  while  we  must  emphasize  this,  so  to  speak, 


478  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

diffused  social  personality  of  the  apparently  individual  units, 
and  while  the  fact  that  each  person  realizes  himself  very 
largely  at  a  distance  from  himself  in  the  activities  of  other 
persons  —  while  this  fact  becomes  a  very  significant  factor  in 
the  most  practical  calculations  of  politics  and  business,  the 
present  tendencies  in  social  theory  and  practice  so  strongly 
favor  this  side  of  the  facts  that  emphasis  of  the  collective  side, 
the  co-operative  aspect,  of  the  situation  is  imperative."^ 

As  a  mere  latest  and  highest  order  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
the  human  race  is  simply  a  mass  of  matter  formed  by  the 
operation  of  physical  forces,  and  distributed  through  space 
by  the  operation  of  other  physical  forces.  So  far,  the  human 
race  is  one  aggregate,  as  truly  as  the  land  and  the  water  of  the 
earth's  surface^  or  the  atmosphere  that  surrounds  the  earth, 
or  the  system  of  the  starry  host  that  fills  the  heavens.  As  a 
conscious  company,  however,  the  human  race  is  not  one  aggre- 
gate, but  a  whole  composed  of  as  many  distinct  and  self- 
impelled  units  as  there  are  persons  in  the  human  family.  We 
have  taken  due  account  of  the  fact  that  society  is  always  and 
inevitably  conditioned  by  its  character  as  a  portion  of  flotsam 
and  jetsam  within  a  physical  environment,  and,  furthermore, 
as  a  portion  of  that  environment.  But  society,  in  that  portion 
of  its  character  which  sociology  has  especially  to  consider, 
is  not  matter,  but  persons.     These  persons  have  such  funda- 

"  In  a  recent  paper  on  "  Thomas  Davidson  "  (McClure's  Magazine,  May, 
iQOS;  P-  31).  Professor  William  James  says:  "  He  led  his  own  life  absolutely,  in 
whatever  company  he  found  himself,  and  the  intense  individualism  which  he 
taught  by  zvord  and  deed  is  the  lesson  of  which  our  generation  is  perhaps  most 
in  need."  (The  italics  are  mine.)  One  who  feels  wholesome  respect  for  Profes- 
sor James  must  hesitate  to  challenge  his  judgment  about  a  matter  on  which  his 
opinion  is  weighty.  I  must  acknowledge,  however,  that  I  cannot  accept  his 
conclusion  in  this  case.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  might  have  applied  to  France 
before  the  Revolution,  and  to  England  before  the  third  Reform  Bill,  and  to  the 
United  States  before  our  Civil  War.  Since  that  time  a  bastard  individualism 
has  run  riot.  The  peculiar  need  of  our  stage  of  development  is  enough 
assimilation  of  the  social  in  our  philosophy  of  life  to  neutralize  this  unsocial 
factor.  The  law  of  individualization  by  'c'irtue  of  socialiaation,  rather  than 
the  fantasy  of  individualization  by  resisting  socialization,  is  the  peculiar 
lesson  that  our  generation  needs. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  479 

mental  likenesses  that  certain  general  propositions  are  true  of 
them  all,  and  we  both  may  and  must  think  of  them  as  one 
and  inseparable.  They  have  such  decisive  differences  that 
we  have  to  count  with  them  as  though  they  were  radically 
and  finally  separate. 

To  express  the  facts  in  an  illustration :  Society  is  not  a 
machine  —  a  locomotive,  for  instance.  Society  has  no  single 
motor  contrivance  which  furnishes  power  to  all  other  parts  of 
the  machine.  Society  has  no  fire-box  and  boiler  which  send 
steam  into  cylinders,  and  society  does  not  transfer  force 
from  certain  active  parts  to  certain  inert  parts,  so  that  the 
latter  have  power  of  motion.  The  trucks  of  the  locomotive 
could  not  move  of  themselves.  The  driving-wheels  could  not 
move  of  themselves.  The  connecting-rod  could  not  move  of 
itself.  The  piston  could  not  move  of  itself.  The  water  could 
not  boil  of  itself.  Society,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  whole  made  up 
of  parts  each  of  which  can  and  does  move  of  itself;  and, 
indeed,  the  only  way  to  get  these  personal  units  to  move  as 
persons  is  to  call  upon  the  motor  machinery  which  is  located 
in  each  person.  When  the  engineer  wants  the  locomotive  to 
do  its  work,  he  does  not  appeal  to  trucks  and  driving-wheels 
and  connecting-rods  and  boiler-pipes,  etc.,  to  exert  motor 
energy  of  their  own.  He  supplies  an  external  energy.  When 
society  acts,  it  has  no  source  of  energy  outside  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  personal  units  who  compose  it.  Thoughts 
and  feelings  in  these  units  must  set  the  units  in  motion. 
Thoughts  and  feelings  in  one  unit  must  correspond  with 
thoughts  and  feelings  in  many  others  in  order  that  there  may 
be  positive  social  action.  If  the  thoughts  and  feelings  in  the 
units  fail  to  co-operate,  there  is  simply  negative  or  destruc- 
tive reaction  between  them. 

A  profounder  psychological  analysis  of  the  individual  than 
is  necessary  for  our  purpose  is  both  possible  and  necessary 
before  we  reach  ultimate  theorems  of  conscious  action.  We 
may  content  ourselves,  however,  for  sociological  purposes, 
with  going  simply  thus  far,  viz. :    Persons  are  centers  of  likes 


48o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

and  dislikes,  of  sympathies  and  antipathies,  of  desires  and  of 
disgusts.  All  action  that  goes  on  in  society  is  the  movement 
and  counter-movement  of  persons  impelled  by  the  particular 
assortment  of  these  feelings  zi'hich  is  located  in  each.  Society 
is  zuhat  it  is  at  any  time  as  the  residtant  of  all  the  efforts  of 
all  the  personal  units  to  reach  each  its  ozvu  peculiar  sort  of 
satisfaction. 

We  have  found  it  most  convenient  to  group  the  wants 
which  all  men  feel  under  six  heads.  Every  desire  which  men 
betray  may  be  analyzed  down  to  elements  which  fall  into 
these  groups,  viz.:  (a)  health,  (b)  wealth,  (c)  sociability, 
(d)  knowledge,  (e)  beauty,  (/)  Tightness.  Our  main  propo- 
sition with  reference  to  this  analysis  of  the  personal  units  is 
this :  In  order  to  have  knowledge  of  any  social  situation, 
past  or  present,  it  is  necessary  to  have  an  account  of  the 
precise  content  and  proportions  of  these  several  wants,  both 
in  typical  persons  of  the  society  and  in  the  group  as  a  whole; 
i.  e.,  what  proportion  do  the  physical  desires,  for  example, 
bear  to  all  the  desires,  and  in  what  form  are  physical  satis- 
factions sought?     So  of  each  of  the  other  desires. 

No  better  brief  illustration  is  at  hand  than  the  one  fur- 
nished by  Professor  John  Dewey  in  a  paper  to  which  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  refer  again.^^  His  thesis  is  that  occupations 
determine  the  fundamental  modes  of  human  activity;  and 
that  the  occupation,  presupposing  different  immediate  and 
remote  objects  of  desire,  and  requiring  variations  in  funda- 
mental modes  of  activity,  produces  variations  of  mental  type, 
including  variations  of  desires.  For  instance,  the  hunting 
life  differs  in  turn  from  the  agricultural,  the  pastoral,  the  mili- 
tary, the  trading,  the  manually  productive,  the  intellectual, 
etc.  Each  of  these  different  kinds  of  life  presents  distinct 
classes  of  problems.  Each  stimulates  its  peculiar  classes  of 
desire.  Each  promotes  the  formation  of  peculiar  habits,  in 
adapting  effort  to  satisfaction  of  the  desires.  Each  of  these 
types  of  habit,   formed  by  an  earlier  and  necessary  stage  in 

""Interpretation  of  the  Savage  Mind,"  Psychological  Review,  May,   1902. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  481 

conquering  the  conditions  of  life,  tends  to  persist;  it  reappears 
as  a  modifier  of  the  impulses  and  habits  that  survive,  because 
more  appropriate  in  a  later  stage. 

Whether  the  illustration  goes  as  far  as  necessary  or  not, 
we  have  sufficiently  emphasized  the  main  contention,  viz. : 
All  social  problems  arc  problems  of  the  relations  of  personal 
units  that  have  in  themselves  distinct  initiative  and  choice  and 
force.  This  personal  equation  must  be  assigned  its  real  value, 
in  order  to  reach  a  true  formula  of  the  social  reaction. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE    SPIRITUAL    ENVIRONMENT;     CONTACTS;     DIFFEREN- 
TIATION;   GROUP;    FORM  OF  THE  GROUP;    CONFLICT; 
SOCIAL  SITUATIONS 

I.  The  Spiritual  Environment. — For  reasons  similar  to 
those  alluded  to  in  chap.  30,  under  the  title  "  Physical 
Environment,"  we  might  pass  the  present  title  as  too  common- 
place for  mention.  Of  course,  human  association  is  the  asso- 
ciation of  human  beings.  Everybody  knows  this,  and  nothing 
more  or  other  than  this  can  be  connected  truthfully  with  any 
phrase  which  may  be  chosen  to  express  the  facts. 

While  this  is  true,  yet  attention  to  the  truth  in  this  case, 
as  so  often  with  the  commonplace,  leads  to  discovery  of 
details  or  relations  otherwise  neglected.  This  particular  com- 
monplace is  to  a  considerable  extent  an  unknown  quantity,  or 
a  miscalculated  quantity,  in  social  valuations. 

Provided  human  beings  are  a  little  removed  from  us  in 
time  or  space,  we  begin  to  think  of  them  as  something  more  or 
less  than  men.  Ancestors  have  only  to  be  dead  a  little  while 
to  acquire  heroic  and  godlike  proportions  in  the  folklore  of 
any  nation.  On  the  other  hand,  to  the  Turk  the  Christian  is 
a  dog,  and  to  the  yellow  man  all  other  races  are  pigs.  The 
foreigner  has  always  been  somewhat  of  a  monster,  and  is 
today,  even  in  the  most  enlightened  nations  of  the  earth.  The 
stranger  does  not  belong  in  the  same  species  with  ourselves. 
Even  different  strata  of  the  same  society  fail  to  understand 
that  they  are  of  one  flesh  and  blood  and  mind  and  heart. 

The  point  to  be  urged  is  that  a  man  is  a  man  the  world 
over  and  the  ages  through.  Catch  your  specimen  on  State 
Street  in  Chicago,  in  a  Louisiana  rice  field,  or  in  the  jungles 
of  India,  and  he  is  essentially  the  same  order  of  unit.  Only 
the  coefficients  and  the  exponents  vary.  Tf  we  can  get  at  the 
essentials   in   any  human  being,   we  have  at  the  same  time 

482 


THE  SPIRITUAL  ENVIRONMENT  483 

the  ground  plan  of  every  other  human  being  the  world  has 
ever  produced.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  our  sample 
man  is  selected  from  the  masses  building  the  pyramids,  or 
from  the  present  British  royal  family,  or  from  the  New  York 
Four  Hundred;  their  springs  of  action  are  fundamentally  the 
same.  This  is  not  to  assert  either  of  the  exploded  doctrines 
about  an  equality  that  never  did  and  never  caii  exist ;  but  the 
thesis  is  a  literal  expression  of  life,  by  no  means  common  in 
our  theories  of  how  the  social  world  came  to  be  what  it  is, 
or  how  it  is  likely  to  reshape  itself  in  the  future.  To  take  the 
most  ready  and  familiar  illustration :  We  regard  the  Greeks 
of  Homer's  time  as  entertaining  children  for  believing  that 
the  men  of  far-off  times  had  any  more  intimate  transactions 
with  the  gods  than  they  could  hold  themselves ;  yet  every  one 
of  us  was  taught  to  believe  that  certain  representatives  of 
the  Hebrew  race  had  different  means  of  communicating  with 
God  from  those  that  are  available  today.  We  consequently 
accepted  a  version  of  Hebrew  history  which  made  out  of  it  a 
fantastic  tradition  that  only  began  to  take  on  the  semblance 
of  reality  within  the  recollection  of  living  men. 

Or  let  us  take  an  entirely  different  illustration.  We  read 
in  our  newspapers  of  the  murder  of  Jews  in  Russia.  We 
thereupon  denounce  the  Russians,  and  we  moralize  endlessly 
upon  the  inhumanity  which  puts  them  in  a  different  class 
from  ourselves.  In  point  of  fact,  we  can  almost  any  day 
see  Chinamen  treated  on  the  streets  of  Chicago  in  a  way  that 
shows  the  same  elemental  traits  which  came  out  in  larger  type 
in  the  riots  at  Kichineff. 

Our  present  thesis  by  no  means  ignores  or  denies  the  count- 
less gradations  of  individual  and  social  standards.  We  do  not 
forget  that  sliuffling  of  primal  motives  and  mixture  of  their 
quantities  make  one  man  incapable  of  exactly  replacing 
another.  Of  course,  we  all  know  so  much,  and  it  would  be 
waste  of  time  to  debate  it.  But  the  point  is  that,  whether  we 
are  dealing  with  a  Nero  or  a  Gladstone,  with  a  community  of 
Quakers  or  a  horde  of  bashi-bazouks,  their  actions  must  all  be 


484  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

analyzed  at  last  in  terms  of  the  same  motor  principles.  One 
type  has  a  plus  of  this  and  a  minus  of  that;  another  has  the 
proportions  reversed;  others  have  permutations  of  the  same 
elements  till  the  variations  are  incalculable;  but  in  principle 
every  spring  of  action  that  is  in  any  man  today  was  in  every 
man  on  the  stage  when  the  curtain  rose  upon  history.  To 
understand  human  actions,  past  or  present,  we  must  rid  our- 
selves of  superstitions  about  a  discontinuous  world  —  whether 
along  chronological  or  geographical  lines  of  cleavage.  We 
must  throw  away  all  conceptions  which  do  not  in  a  certain 
sense  interpret  all  men  by  ourselves,  and  ourselves  by  all 
men.  We  must  learn  to  explain  what  other  men  have  done 
and  are  doing  as  expressions  of  the  same  sort  of  response 
that  we  ourselves  make  to  the  same  sort  of  stimulus  to  which 
we  are  exposed ;  or  an  expression  of  the  same  reaction  which 
would  be  produced  in  us  if,  under  like  circumstances,  we  were 
exposed  to  the  same  kind  of  stimulus.^ 

The  propriety  of  viewing  these  facts  of  common  human 
nature  as  elements  of  the  concept  "  the  spiritual  environ- 
ment" depends  upon  the  perception  that,  "held  together  in 
social  relationships,  men  modify  each  other^s  nature."^  This 
proposition  presents  the  social  fact  in  its  most  evident  form. 
It  involves  one  of  the  primary  problems  of  sociology,  viz. : 
What  are  the  details  of  the  modifications  which  men's  natures 
undergo  through  reciprocal  influence?  As  Professor  Thomas 
has  said  in  his  paper  "The  Gaming  Instinct":^ 

Psychologically  the  individual  is  inseparable  from  his  surroundings, 
and  his  attitude  toward  the  world  is  determined  by  the  nature  of  sug- 
gestions from  the  outside.  The  general  culture  and  social  position  of 
his  parents,  the  ideals  of  the  social  set  in  which  he  moves,  the  schools  he 
attends,  the  literature  he  sees,  the  girl  he  wants  to  marry,  are  among  the 
factors  which  determine  the  life-directions  of  the  youth.  From  the  complex 
of  suggestions  coming  to  him  in  the  social  relations  into  which  he  is  born 

*  For  development  of  ideas  closely  related  to  the  present  concept,  vide 
chaps.  12,  31,  and  32. 

'  Giddings,  Principles  of  Sociology,  p.  377. 
'American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  VI,  p.  761. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  ENVIRONMENT  485 

or  thrown,  he  selects  and  follows  those  recurring  persistently,  emanating 
from  attractive  personalities,  or  arising  in  critical  circumstances. 

Professor  Ross  has  used  the  term  "social  ascendency" 
for  the  whole  sum  of  facts  in  a  society  by  which  tradition  and 
derived  standards  impose  themselves  upon  the  individual. 
This  social  ascendency  is  partly  by  means  of  social  machinery, 
like  the  industrial  and  the  governmental  systems.  It  is  partly 
by  means  of  ideas,  customs,  standards  of  taste,  form,  morals, 
which  most  of  the  persons  affected  by  them  do  not  express  in 
words.  They  are  an  invisible  presence,  but  they  often  dictate 
the  course  of  social  events  as  absolutely  as  a  physical  cause 
procures  its  effect.  Perhaps  the  best  illustration  for  Americans 
is  the  race-sentiment  in  the  South,  as  contrasted  with  the 
promiscuity  of  sentiment  on  the  same  subject  in  the  North, 
A  visitor  from  the  North  goes  to  a  southern  state,  and  before 
he  has  been  there  an  hour,  if  he  mingles  with  the  people,  he 
detects  a  something  in  the  social  tone  w^iich  he  has  read 
about,  but  never  before  directly  experienced.  He  finds  him- 
self among  some  of  the  most  genial,  warm-hearted,  high- 
minded  people  he  has  ever  seen ;  but  he  finds  them  governed 
by  a  code  of  sentiments  toward  the  colored  man  which  seems 
to  him  unintelligible  and  inconsistent.  The  northern  man 
does  not  know  how  to  draw  the  distinctions  in  his  conduct 
toward  the  black  man  which  the  southern  man  draws  instinc- 
tively; and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  northern  man  will  draw 
lines  at  points  where  the  southern  man  does  not  feel  the  need 
of  them.  Here  are  two  different  spiritual  environments.  The 
southern  man  lives  in  an  environment  of  race-distinctions. 
The  northern  man  lives  in  an  environment  of  merely  personal 
distinctions.  To  the  northern  man  personal  likes  and  dis- 
likes, social  inclusion  or  exclusion,  wall  depend  on  the  indi- 
vidual. His  being  a  negro  makes  no  more  difference  than 
his  being  a  Spaniard  or  Italian  or  Rusisian  or  Englishman.  To 
the  southern  man  the  idea  of  a  socially  acceptable  negro  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms. 

No  argument  on  the  merits  of  the  case  is  implied  in  the 


486  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

illustration.  The  point  is  that  these  familiar  mental  attitudes 
are  convenient  evidences  of  the  universal  reality;  viz.,  a 
spiritual  tone,  atmosphere,  perspective,  standard,  which  sets 
the  limits  of  action  for  individuals  in  the  community. 

It  is  necessary  to  emphasize  the  fact  of  the  spiritual  envi- 
ronment, partly  because  we  have  that  familiarity  with  it  which 
breeds  contempt.  It  is  so  commonplace  that  we  think  it  may 
be  ignored.  It  is  necessary  also  because  in  other  cases  the 
fact  is  like  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere.  Each  of  us  is 
afifected  by  it  most  intimately,  but  few  of  us  have  discovered 
It.  Just  as  every  portion  of  space  has  its  physical  atmosphere, 
so  every  portion  of  society  has  its  thought-atmosphere.  This 
mental  envelope  largely  explains  habit  and  custom,  impulse 
and  endeavor,  power  and  limitation,  within  the  society.  To 
know  the  act,  the  person,  the  episode,  the  social  situation,  the 
social  problem,  the  social  movement,  in  any  single  cas^ 
must  know  the  thought-environment  or  the  spiritual  ei 
ment  in  which  it  occurs.  This  is  a  requirement  that  is  univer- 
sal and  without  exception.^ 

2.  Contact. —  Reference  to  De  Greef's  thesis,  that  the 
distinguishing  factor  of  society  is  contact,  will  assist  in  defin- 
ing the  content  of  the  present  concept.  In  dissent  from  De 
Greef's  proposition  we  have  urged  that  "  it  would  be  more  cor- 
rect, though  still  vague,  to  say  that  sociology  deals  especially 
with  the  phenomena  oi  contact.  The  reactions  which  result 
from  voluntary  or  involuntary  contact  of  human  beings  with 
other  human  beings  are  the  phenomena  peculiarly  *  social,'  as 
distinguished  from  the  phenomena  that  belong  properly  to 
biology  and  psychology."  ^ 

This  claim  may  be  expanded  as  follows :  In  the  first 
place,  we  want  to  indicate,  not  the  essence  of  the  social,  but 
the  location,  the  sphere,  the  extent,  of  the  social.  If  we  can 
agree  where  it  is,  we  may  then  proceed  to  discover  what  it 

*  Cf.  Dewey,  "  Interpretation  of  the  Savage  Mind,"  Psychological  Review, 
May,   1902. 

'  Small  and  Vincent,  Introduction,  pp.  60,  61. 


CONTACT  487 

is.^  In  the  first  place,  then,  the  social  is  the  term  next  beyond 
the  individual.  Assuming,  for  the  sake  of  analysis,  that  our 
optical  illusion,  "  the  individual,"  is  an  isolated  and  self- 
sufficient  fact,  there  are  many  sorts  of  scientific  problem 
that  do  not  need  to  go  beyond  this  fact  to  satisfy  their  par- 
ticular terms.  Whether  the  individual  can  ever  be  abstracted 
from  his  conditions  and  remain  himself,  is  not  a  question 
that  we  need  here  discuss.  At  all  events,  the  individual  known 
to  our  experience  is  not  isolated.  He  is  connected  in  various 
ways  with  one  or  more  individuals.  The  different  ways  in 
which  individuals  are  connected  with  each  other  are  indicated 
by  the  inclusive  term  "contact."  We  will  not  now  extend  the 
meaning  of  this  term  to  other  contacts  of  persons  than  those 
with  other  persons.  If  we  did,  we  should  thereby  take  our- 
selves into  a  still  more  general  field,  within  which  the  laws  of 
the  social  are  subordinate  orders.  Starting,  then,  from  the 
individual,  to  measure  him  in  all  his  dimensions  and  to  repre- 
sent him  in  all  his  phases,  we  find  that  each  person  is  what  he 
is  by  virtue  of  the  existence  of  other  persons,  and  by  virtue  of 
an  alternating  current  of  influence  between  each  person  and 
all  the  other  persons  previously  or  at  the  same  time  in  exist- 
ence. The  last  native  of  central  Africa  around  whom  we 
throw  the  dragnet  of  civilization,  and  whom  we  inoculate  with 
a  desire  for  whiskey,  adds  an  increment  to  the  demand  for  our 
distillery  products,  and  affects  the  internal  revenue  of  the 
United  States,  and  so  the  life-conditions  of  every  member  of 
our  population.  This  is  what  we  mean  by  "  contact."  So 
long  as  that  African  tribe  is  unknown  to  the  outside  world, 
and  the  world  to  it,  so  far  as  the  European  world  is  concerned 
the  tribe  might  as  well  not  exist.  The  moment  the  tribe 
comes  within  touch  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  aggregate  of 
the  world's  contacts  is  by  so  much  enlarged ;  the  social  world 
is  by  so  much  extended.     In  other  words,  the  realm  of  the 

'  Of  course,  the  converse  is  true,  with  different  ratios  of  content  in  the 
terms.  The  two  following  sections  in  this  chapter  represent  the  latter  factor 
in  the  case. 


488  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

social  is  the  realm  of  circuits  of  reciprocal  influence  between 
individuals  and  the  groups  which  individuals  compose.  The 
general  term  "contact"  is  proposed  to  stand  for  this  realm, 
because  it  is  a  colorless  word  that  may  mark  boundaries  with- 
out prejudging  contents.  Wherever  there  is  physical  or  spir- 
itual contact  between  persons,  there  is  inevitably  a  circuit  of 
exchange  of  influence.  The  realm  of  the  social  is  the  realm 
constituted  by  such  exchange.  It  extends  from  the  producing 
of  the  baby  by  the  mother,  and  the  simultaneous  producing 
of  the  mother  by  the  baby,  to  the  producing  of  merchant  and 
soldier  by  the  world-powers,  and  the  producing  of  the  world- 
powers  by  merchant  and  soldier.'^ 

The  most  general  and  inclusive  way  in  which  to  designate 
all  the  phenomena  that  sociology  proper  considers,  without 
importing  into  the  term  premature  hypotheses  by  way  of 
explanation,  is  to  assert  that  they  are  the  phenomena  of  "  con- 
tact "  between  persons.  It  is  an  open  question,  to  be  sure, 
whether  it  is  worth  while  to  keep  both  the  concepts  "  contact " 
and  "  process  "  in  commission.  The  latter  is  so  much  more  vital 
than  the  former  that  it  may  deserve  exclusive  monopoly  as  a 
primary  notion.  We  think,  however,  that  the  claim  is  excessive. 

In  accordance  with  what  was  said  about  the  division  of 
labor  between  psychology  and  sociology,^  it  seems  best  to  leave 
to  the  psychologist  all  that  goes  on  inside  the  individual,  and  to 
say  that  the  work  of  the  sociologist  begins  with  the  things  that 
take  place  between  individuals.  This  principle  of  division  is 
not  one  that  can  be  maintained  absolutely,  any  more  than  we 
can  hold  absolutely  to  any  other  abstract  classification  of  real 
actions.  It  serves,  however,  certain  rough  uses.  Our  work 
as  students  of  society  begins  in  earnest  when  the  individual 
has  become  equipped  with  his  individuality.  This  stage  of 
human  growth  is  both  cause  and  effect  of  the  life  of  human 

^  Dietzel's  location  of  the  phenomena  of  "  social  economics "  wherever 
there  are  "contacts"  of  men  in  economic  activities  (Thcoretische  Social- 
bkonomik,  pp.  28,  29)  simply  applies  in  a  single  sphere  the  criterion  thus 
generalized. 

"  Chap.   32. 


CONTACT  489 

beings  side  by  side  in  greater  or  lesser  numbers.  Under  those 
circumstances  individuals  are  produced;  they  act  as  individu- 
als; by  their  action  as  individuals  they  produce  a  certain  type 
of  society;  that  type  reacts  on  the  individuals  and  helps  to 
transform  them  into  different  types  of  individuals,  who  in 
turn  produce  a  modified  type  of  society;  and  so  the  rhythm 
goes  on  forever.  Now,  the  medium  through  which  all  this 
occurs  is  the  fact  of  contacts,  either  physical  or  spiritual.  In 
either  case,  contacts  are  collisions  of  interests  in  the  indi- 
viduals. 

There  is  no  mystery  or  abstruseness  about  the  simple  fact 
which  finds  an  important  meaning  at  this  step  of  our  analysis. 
We  are  not  now  dealing  with  a  pedantic  abstraction,  but  we 
are  applying  a  convenient  general  name  to  the  simplest  social 
occurrence.  This  event  repeats  itself  in  myriad  forms  wher- 
ever there  are  people.  It  is  namely  the  prime  fact  that  indi- 
viduals run  up  against  each  other,  and  have  to  make  place  for 
each  other,  and  to  give  way  to  each  other,  more  or  less,  in 
every  condition  of  life.  These  contacts  and  these  adjustments 
are  the  whole  of  life,  so  far  as  outward  phenomena  go.  To 
understand  and  interpret  life,  however,  we  have  to  get  into  the 
deeper  meaning  of  what  appears  outwardly  in  this  simple 
form.  This  is  another  way  of  expressing  the  task  of  all  social 
science.  At  present  we  are  concerned  not  with  the  later  task 
of  explanation,  but  with  the  preliminary  work  of  presenting 
the  facts  to  be  explained. 

We  have  used  the  terms  "conditions"  and  "elements" 
of  society.^  We  have  spoken  of  nature  on  the  one  hand,  and 
people  on  the  other,  as  among  those  conditions  and  elements. 
Then  we  split  up  this  human  element  into  its  working  factors, 
i.  e.,  interests;  and  we  noticed  how  these  working  elements 
construct  themselves  into  the  make-up  of  individuals,  who  are 
the  cast  of  the  play  whose  plot  we  are  trying  to  understand 
when  we  study  the  social  process.  We  are  now  observing  the 
further  condition,  viz.,  that  the  action  of  this  drama,  human 

•  Chap.   30. 


490  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

association,  consists  in  contacts  between  the  individuals  in  the 
cast;  i.  e.,  exchanges  of  energy  in  the  reciprocal  effort  to  sat- 
isfy interests. 

Again  we  might  be  accused  of  exploiting  the  common- 
place, and  there  is  no  defense  against  the  charge,  except  that 
the  only  escape  which  modern  science  has  found  from  the 
illusions  of  scholastic,  speculative  knowledge  is  to  look  literal- 
ness  straight  in  the  face,  no  matter  how  commonplace  it  may 
be,  and  to  build  up  our  ideas  by  putting  together  these  reali- 
ties, instead  of  deceiving  ourselves  with  projections  of  our 
fancy. 

We  start,  therefore,  with  the  truism  that  all  the  incidents 
in  the  life  of  the  human  individual  are  contacts  of  some  sort 
with  physical  conditions  or  with  other  individuals.  We  are 
trying  to  confine  attention  as  closely  as  possible  to  the  latter 
class  of  contacts.  These  contacts  in  turn  may  be  either  physi- 
cal or  mental,  but  in  either  case  they  are  conditions  to  which 
individuals  adapt  their  actions.  These  adaptations  constitute 
the  phenomena  of  society. 

For  instance,  the  savage  hunting  for  today's  dinner  comes 
upon  another  savage  likewise  hunting  for  today's  dinner. 
Their  interests  come  together.  Shall  it  prove  a  friendly  or  a 
hostile  contact  ?  Shall  they  decide  that  their  chances  are  better 
if  they  help  each  other;  or  shall  they  assume  that  there  is  not 
enough  in  sight  for  both,  and  fall  to  fighting  each  other? 
Here  is  a  typical  social  problem  in  the  simplest  form ;  and  all 
others,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  are  like  unto  it.  Indi- 
viduals come  into  contact.  Their  interests  assert  themselves. 
The  result  is  fight  or  help.  W'hatever  we  understand  by  the 
case  of  Cain  and  Abel,  it  is  evidently  a  picture  of  contact 
between  agricultural  and  grazing  interests,  and  a  fight  result- 
ing in  murder.  England  and  Russia  are  in  contact  today 
(1905)  in  Thibet.  Half  a  dozen  candidates  for  the  Senate 
may  be  in  contact  in  one  of  our  American  states,  although  they 
may  never  have  seen  each  other.  The  reform  and  the 
Tammany  interests  are  in  contact  in  every  mayoralty  fight  in 


DIFFERENTIATION  49i 

New  York  city.  The  Church  of  England  and  the  dissenting 
interests  are  in  contact  in  tlie  present  educational  situation  in 
Great  Britain;  etc.,  etc.  From  least  to  greatest,  the  begin- 
nings and  continuings  of  everything  that  can  properly  be  called 
society  depend  upon  this  universal  condition  of  contact 
between  the  individuals  that  form  the  elements  of  society. 

This  fact  is  as  obvious  as  it  is  important  in  social  analysis. 
It  plays  a  part  which  gets  recognized  gradually  as  we  proceed 
in  study  of  the  social  process.  The  present  purpose  is  served 
when  we  have  merely  registered  this  concept  among  gener- 
alizations with  which  we  have  to  deal. 

3.  Differentiation. —  We  might  recall  Spencer's  for- 
mula of  evolution,  viz. : 

Evolution  is  an  integration  of  matter  and  a  concomitant  dissipation  of 
motion,  during  which  the  matter  passes  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent 
homogeneity,  to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity,  and  during  which  the 
relative  motion  undergoes  a  parallel  transformation." 

Reduced  to  a  single  word,  this  formula  would  be  that 
evolution  is  differentiation.  The  rest  of  the  formula  merely 
characterizes  certain  features  of  the  differentiation. 

The  social  process,  as  a  part  of  the  world-process  in  gen- 
eral, is  likewise  a  collection  of  differentiations.  One  way  of 
telling  the  story  of  every  individual  life,  or  of  universal  his- 
tory, or  of  anything  intermediate,  would  be  to  narrate  the 
differentiations  that  occurred  from  beginning  to  end  of  the 
career.  Discussion  of  this  concept  could  hardly  be  reduced  to 
a  few  concise  statements.  We  might  choose  from  numberless 
societies  the  material  for  illustration.  For  instance,  we  might 
adopt  Ratzenhofer's  classification  of  the  concrete  interests 
differentiated  in  a  modern  State.^^ 

With  the  differentiation  of  each  of  these  forms  of  interest 
there  naturally  follows  corresponding  differentiation  of  social 
structures  and  functions.^ ^ 

^^  First  Principles,  sec.  145. 

"  Vide  above,  chap.  20. 

^^  The    profoundest    discussion    of    this    concept    is    in    Simmel's    Sociale 


492  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Without  going  into  precise  or  exhaustive  discussion  of 
this  universal  social  fact,  we  may  perhaps  bring  it  sufficiently 
into  view  in  the  graphic  form  in  which  it  has  been  presented 
by  Professor  Vincent,^  ^ 

We  have,  in  the  first  place,  a  young  farmer  with  his  wife 
taking  possession  of  a  piece  of  land  in  Kansas,  eighty  miles 
from  the  nearest  settlement.  Although  in  this  instance  the 
persons  in  question  are  the  products  of  a  relatively  high  civi- 
lization, yet  they  have  separated  themselves  from  their  fel- 
lows, and  have  started  life  as  pioneers.  Both  the  land  where 
they  make  their  home  is  in  its  natural  state,  entirely  undevel- 
oped, and  their  own  occupations  are  almost  without  division 
of  labor.  They  must  be  tillers  of  the  soil,  artisans,  physicians, 
nurses,  teachers,  priests,  and  defenders  of  their  lives  against 
climate,  beasts,  and  Indians.  In  the  course  of  time,  neighbors 
settle  within  reach.  Thereupon  stages  of  individual  and 
group-development  follow  each  other  in  rapid  succession.  It 
is  easier  briefly  to  indicate  the  group-differentiations  than  the 
parallel  changes  that  take  place  in  the  individuals  themselves. 
The  latter,  however,  are  no  less  real  than  the  former. 

In  due  time  children  are  born  to  the  couple,  and  forthwith  a. 
change  occurs  in  the  round  of  domestic  activities.  The  devel- 
opment of  the  farm  calls  for  the  help  of  another  pair  of  hands, 
and  a  "  hired  man  "  is  added  to  the  household.  The  group  is 
thus  made  more  complex.  Presently  the  farmer  succeeds  in 
getting  from  the  government  a  clear  title  to  his  land.  There- 
upon he  is  changed  in  his  whole  relation  to  his  surroundings. 
He  no  longer  is  a  mere  squatter,  but  there  is  an  element  of 
permanence  in  his  situation. 

In  a  few  years,  influenced  by  the  homestead  law,  eleven 
families  in  all  find  themselves  in  a  group  around  the  original 

Differencierungen,  reprinted  1902.  Ratzenhofer  devotes  a  chapter  to  much 
more  concrete  description,  Die  sociologischc  Erkeuntniss,  chap.  15.  Specific 
phases  of  differentiation  are  referred  to  below  (pp.  589  ff.)  under  the  titles 
"  Individualization  "    and    "  Socialization." 

"Small  and  Vincent,  Introduction,  Book  II. 


DIFFERENTIATION  493 

halting-place  of  our  couple.  These  families  are  of  various 
types,  in  the  matter  of  property,  nationality,  education,  reli- 
gion, political  beliefs,  skill,  etc.  Our  illustration  would  be  of 
a  more  fundamental  sort  if  we  could  trace  the  changes  that 
occur  in  a  group  wholly  by  growth  from  within.  Changes 
that  result  primarily  from  accretions  to  the  group  from  with- 
out follow  similar  laws,  however,  and  a  type  of  case  that  is 
familiar  to  us  is  doubtless  best  for  our  present  purpose. 

The  group  being  thus  enlarged,  being  no  longer  a  single 
family,  the  activities  of  the  group  present  variations  that  the 
family  did  not  and  could  not  show.  There  is  at  once  a  demand 
for  division  of  labor,  and  a  certain  possibility  of  supplying  the 
demand.  While  life  in  one  family  bears  a  certain  general 
resemblance  to  that  in  another,  the  American  families  tend  to 
insist  upon  certain  peculiar  customs,  and  they  form  a  clan  by 
themselves.  The  like  is  true  of  the  German  and  the  Irish 
families.  Somewhat  later  a  few  families  from  the  southern 
states  enlarge  the  settlement,  and  in  their  turn  they  furnish 
their  own  element  of  diversification. 

Meanwhile  differences  of  occupation  are  appearing.  The 
farms  taken  up  by  the  settlers  are  not  equal  and  alike  in  nat- 
ural advantages,  and  the  owners  are  not  equal  in  enterprise 
and  skill.  The  first  family,  in  point  of  time,  has  the  advan- 
tage of  longer  permanent  settlement,  and  the  accumulation 
of  improvements  and  other  property;  for  example,  the  ferry, 
which  is  the  only  means  of  crossing  the  river.  The  pioneers, 
therefore,  hold  a  position  of  economic,  and  vaguely  of  social, 
prominence.  They  have  been  able  to  provide  their  neighbors 
with  building  materials,  seed,  food,  cattle,  and  other  supplies, 
during  the  early  months  of  settlement,  and  have  thus  added 
to  their  own  store  of  wealth,  which  has  been  invested  in  fur- 
ther improvements,  such  as  remodeling  the  cabin,  building  a 
new  ferry  raft,  extending  lines  of  fences,  and  buying  better 
implements. 

But  specialization  follows  quickly.  The  first  settler  has 
horses  and  wagons,  and  produces  on  his  farm  a  larger  surplus 


494  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

than  his  neighbors.  He  has  to  find  a  market  for  this  surplus 
in  the  town  eighty  miles  away.  On  his  frequent  journeys 
back  and  forth  he  willingly  executes  commissions  for  his 
neighbors.  Without  forming  a  conscious  purpose  to  enter 
upon  another  occupation,  he  presently  finds  that  he  has  become 
a  common  carrier  for  the  group,  collecting  regular  charges 
for  his  service.  Then  come  quickly  the  development  of  bar- 
ter between  the  group  and  the  distant  town,  and,  among  the 
settlers  themselves,  the  establishment  of  a  general  store,  the 
use  of  the  trader  to  import  simple  manufactures  which  the 
settlers  had  previously  made  for  themselves ;  the  setting  up  of 
a  blacksmith's  shop,  then  a  carpenter's  shop,  and  finally  a  saw- 
mill. At  the  same  time,  developments  outside  the  economic 
field  are  going  on.  Instead  of  giving  the  children  all  their 
instruction  in  the  household,  the  neighbors  combine  their 
resources  and  call  a  professional  school-teacher  into  existence. 
Later  they  get  the  services  of  an  occasional  circuit  preacher. 
In  cases  of  severe  sickness,  they  send  for  a  doctor  from  the 
town.  From  these  beginnings  the  process  is  rapid  until, 
before  the  death  of  the  original  settler,  his  location  has  become 
the  center  of  a  fully  equipped  modern  city,  with  all  the  appoint- 
ments and  activities  of  civilization.  During  this  process  the 
settlers  themselves  have  been  changed  from  frontiersmen  to 
sophisticated  citizens  of  the  world,  carrying  on  all  the  different 
useful  and  ornamental  occupations,  as  well  as  those  that  are 
useless  or  worse. 

In  this  instance  we  have  an  epitome  of  what  is  going  on 
constantly  throughout  the  world.  The  rate  of  development 
is  seldom  as  rapid  as  that  which  has  been  seen  over  and  over 
again  in  the  last  half-century  in  America,  but  this  dc^es  not 
affect  the  value  of  the  concept  "differentiation"  itself.  The 
anthropologists  delight  to  turn  our  attention  to  the  facts  of 
social  growth  in  the  primitive  races,  and  some  of  them  are 
very  shy  about  admitting  that  there  is  anything  normal  or 
typical  in  these  modern  instances.  In  fact,  the  one  sort  of 
differentiation   is   as   normal   as   the   other.      Essentially   the 


GROUPS  495 

same  thing  is  going  on  when  department  stores  are  drawing 
all  the  retail  trade  down  town,  that  takes  place  when  nomads 
drop  some  of  their  wanderings  and  begin  to  cultivate  the  soil. 
Either  case  is  merely  one  among  the  numberless  forms  of 
human  differentiation  which  constitute  one  phase  of  all  social 
experience.  Whether  or  not  this  is  an  important  generaliza- 
tion will  appear  as  we  proceed. 

4.  Groups. —  The  fact  of  social  groups  is  so  obvious,  and 
it  is  so  significant,  that  the  concept  has  been  in  constant  use 
in  the  foregoing  discussion.  The  term  "  group  "  serves  as  a 
convenient  sociological  designation  for  any  number  of  people, 
larger  or  smaller,  between  whom  such  relations  are  discovered 
that  they  must  be  thought  of  together.  The  "group"  is  the 
most  general  and  colorless  term  used  in  sociology  for  com- 
binations of  persons.  A  family,  a  mob,  a  picnic  party,  a 
trade  union,  a  city  precinct,  a  corporation,  a  state,  a  nation, 
the  civilized  or  the  uncivilized  population  of  the  world,  may 
be  treated  as  a  group.  Thus  a  ''  group  "  for  sociology  is  a 
number  of  persons  whose  relations  to  each  other  are  suffi- 
ciently impressive  to  demand  attention.  The  term  is  merely 
a  commonplace  tool.  It  contains  no  mystery.  It  is  only  a 
handle  with  which  to  grasp  the  innumerable  varieties  of 
arrangements  into  which  people  are  drawn  by  their  variations 
of  interest.  The  universal  condition  of  association  may  be 
expressed  in  the  same  commonplace  way :  people  always  live  in 
groups,  and  the  same  persons  are  likely  to  be  members  of 
many  groups.  All  the  illustrations  that  we  need  suggest  may 
be  assembled  around  the  schedule  of  interests  referred  to  under 
the  last  title. 

Individuals  nowhere  live  in  utter  isolation.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  social  vacuum.  The  few  Robinson  Crusoes 
are  not  exceptions  to  the  rule.  If  they  are,  they  are  like  the 
Irishman's  horse.  The  moment  they  begin  to  get  adjuste;d 
to  the  exceptional  condition,  they  die.  Actual  persons  always 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being  in  groups.  These  groups 
are  more  or  less  complex,  more  or  less  continuous,  more  or 


496  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

less  rigid  in  character.  The  destinies  of  human  beings  are 
always  bound  up  with  the  fate  of  the  groups  of  which  they 
are  members.  While  the  individuals  are  the  real  existences, 
and  the  groups  are  only  relationships  of  individuals,  yet  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  the  groups  which  people  form  are  just 
as  distinct  and  efficient  molders  of  the  lives  of  individuals  as 
though  they  were  entities  that  had  existence  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  the  individuals. 

The  college  fraternity  or  the  college  class,  for  instance, 
would  be  only  a  name,  and  presently  not  even  that,  if  each  of 
its  members  should  withdraw.  It  is  the  members  themselves, 
and  not  something  outside  of  themselves.  Yet  to  A,  B,  or  C 
the  fraternity  or  the  class  might  as  well  be  a  river  or  a  moun- 
tain by  the  side  of  w^hich  he  stands,  and  which  he  is  helpless 
to  remove.  He  may  modify  it  somewhat.  He  is  surely  modi- 
fied by  it  somewhat;  and  the  same  is  true  of  all  the  other 
groups  in  which  A,  B,  or  C  belongs.  To  a  very  considerable 
extent  the  question,  Why  does  A,  B,  or  C  do  so  and  so?  is 
euivalent  to  the  question.  What  are  the  peculiarities  of  the 
group  to  which  A,  B,  or  C  belongs  ?  It  would  never  occur  to 
A,  B,  or  C  to  skulk  from  shadow  to  shadow  of  a  night,  with 
paint-pot  and  brush  in  hand,  and  to  smear  Arabic  numerals 
of  bill-poster  size  on  sidewalk  or  buildings,  if  "class  spirit" 
did  not  add  stimulus  to  individual  bent.  Neither  A,  B,  nor  C 
would  go  out  of  his  way  to  flatter  and  cajole  a  freshman,  if 
membership  in  a  fraternity  did  not  make  a  student  something 
different  from  an  individual.  These  are  merely  familiar  cases 
which  follow  a  universal  law. 

In  effect,  the  groups  to  which  we  belong  might  be  as  sep- 
arate and  independent  of  us  as  the  streets  and  buildings  of  a 
city  are  from  the  population.  If  the  inhabitants  should 
migrate  in  a  body,  the  streets  and  buildings  would  remain. 
This  is  not  true  of  human  groups,  but  their  reaction  upon  the 
persons  who  compose  them  is  no  less  real  and  evident.  We 
are  in  large  part  what  our  social  set.  our  church,  our  political 


GROUPS  497 

party,  our  business  and  professional  circles  are.  This  has 
always  been  the  case,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  and 
will  always  be  the  case.  To  understand  what  society  is,  either 
in  its  larger  or  its  smaller  parts,  and  why  it  is  so,  and  how  far 
it  is  possible  to  make  it  different,  we  must  invariably  explain 
groups  on  the  one  hand,  no  less  than  individuals  on  the  other. 
There  is  a  striking  illustration  in  Chicago  at  present  (summer, 
1905).  Within  a  short  time  a  certain  man  has  made  a  com- 
plete change  in  his  group-relations.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
influential  trade-union  leaders  in  the  city.  He  has  now  become 
the  executive  officer  of  an  association  of  employers.  In  the 
elements  that  are  not  determined  by  his  group-relationships 
he  is  the  same  man  that  he  was  before.  Those  are  precisely 
the  elements,  however,  that  may  be  canceled  out  of  the  social 
problem.  All  the  elements  in  his  personal  equation  that  give 
him  a  distinct  meaning  in  the  life  of  the  city  are  given  to  him 
by  his  membership  of  the  one  group  or  the  other.  Till  yes- 
terday he  gave  all  his  strength  to  organizing  labor  against 
capital.  Now  he  gives  all  his  strength  to  the  service  of  capital 
against  labor. 

As  in  the  case  of  all  the  other  elements  and  conditions  of 
society  to  which  we  are  now  calling  attention,  the  complete 
meaning  of  this  item  must  be  discovered  gradtially  through 
investigation  of  the  social  process.  We  are  now  merely 
recording  a  convenient  term  for  the  observation  that,  what- 
ever social  problem  we  confront,  whatever  persons  come  into 
our  field  of  view,  the  first  questions  involved  will  always  be : 
To  what  groups  do  these  persons  belong?  What  are  the 
interests  of  these  groups?  What  sort  of  means  do  the  groups 
use  to  promote  their  interests?  How  strong  are  these  groups, 
as  compared  zvith  groups  that  have  conflicting  interests? 
These  questions  go  to  one  tap  root  of  all  social  interpretation, 
whether  in  the  case  of  historical  events  far  in  the  past,  or  of 
the  most  practical  problems  of  our  own  neighborhood.  We 
have  to   understand  the   whole   tangle  of  group-interests   in 


498  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

which  the  persons  are  involved,  in  order  to  deal  with  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  problem  which  the  group  presents.^  ^ 

5.  Form  of  the  Group. —  This  conception  has  been 
pushed  to  the  front  by  one  of  the  keenest  thinkers  in  Europe 
—  Professor  Simmel,  of  Berlin. 

Simmel  distinguishes  two  senses  of  the  term  "  society " : 
"first,  the  broader  sense,  in  which  the  term  includes  the  sum 
of  all  the  individuals  concerned  in  reciprocal  relations,  together 
with  all  the  interests  which  unite  these  interacting  persons; 
second,  a  narrower  sense,  in  which  the  term  designates  the 
society  or  association  as  such;  that  is,  the  interaction  itself 
which  constitutes  the  bond  of  association,  in  abstraction  from 
its  material  content."  ^^ 

Using  his  own  explanation: 

Thus,  for  illustration,  we  designate  as  a  cube,  on  the  one  hand,  any 
natural  object  in  cubical  form;  on  the  other  hand,  the  simple  form  alone, 
which  made  the  material  contents  into  a  "  cube,"  in  the  former  sense, 
constitutes  of  itself,  independently  and  abstractly  considered,  an  object  for 
geometry.  The  significance  of  geometry  appears  in  the  fact  that  the 
formal  relations  which  it  determines  hold  good  for  all  possible  objects 
formed  in  space.  In  like  manner,  it  is  the  purpose  of  sociology  to  determine 
the  forms  and  modes  of  the  relations  between  men,  which,  although  con- 
stituted of  entirely  different  contents,  material,  and  interests,  nevertheless 
take  shape  in  formally  similar  social  structures.  If  we  could  exhibit  the 
totality  of  possible  forms  of  social  relationship  in  their  gradations  and 
variations,  we  should  have  in  such  exhibit  complete  knowledge  of 
"society"  as  such.  We  gain  knowledge  of  the  forms  of  socialization  by 
bringing  together  inductively  the  manifestations  of  these  forms  which 
have  had  actual  historical  existence.  In  other  words,  we  have  to  collect 
and  exhibit  that  element  of  form  which  these  historical  manifestations 
have  in  common  abstracted  from  the  variety  of  material  —  economical, 
ethical,  ecclesiastical,  social,  political,  etc.  —  with  respect  to  which  they 
differ." 

"  The  thesis  of  Simmel,  that  sociology  must  be  the  science 
of  social  forms,  has  at  least  this  effect  upon  the  present  stage 

'*  Cf.  reference  to  Gumplowicz,  pp.  86,  87  ;  lide  also  Ross,  Foundations 
of  Sociology,  chap.  6,  "  Properties  of  Group   Units." 

"American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  II,  p.   167.  "  Loc.  cit.,  p.  168. 


CONFLICT  499 

of  correlation,  viz. :  it  makes  us  conscious  that  we  have  no 
adequate  schedule  of  the  forms  of  social  life." 

6.  Conflict. —  The  facts  referred  to  in  sees.  4  and  5 
above,  and  yielding  the  concepts  "  dififerentiation "  and 
"  group,"  have  other  relations  which  the  present  term  brings 
into  focus.  In  a  word,  the  whole  social  process  is  a  perpetual 
reaction  between  interests  that  have  their  lodgment  in  the 
individuals  who  are  in  contact.  More  specifically,  this  reac- 
tion is  disguised  or  open  struggle  between  individuals.  The 
conflict  of  interests  between  individuals,  combined  with  com- 
munity of  interest  in  the  same  individuals,  results  in  the 
groupings  of  individuals  between  whom  there  is  relatively 
more  in  common,  and  then  the  continuance  of  struggle 
between  group  and  group.  The  members  of  each  group  have 
relatively  less  in  common  with  the  members  of  a  different 
group  than  they  have  with  each  other. 

The  concept  "  conflict "  is  perhaps  the  most  obvious  in 
the  whole  schedule.  It  has  not  only  been  a  practically  con- 
stant presumption  of  nearly  all  social  theory  and  practice  in 
the  past,  but  it  has  had  excessive  prominence  in  modern  soci- 
ology.^^ The  central  conception  in  the  theory  of  Gumplowicz, 
for  example,  is  that  the  human  process  is  a  perpetual  con- 
flict of  groups  in  which  the  individuals  actually  lose  their 
individuality.^*  The  balance  between  "conflict,"  on  the  one 
hand,  and  co-operation  and  correlation  and  consensus,  on  the 
other,  has  never  been  formulated  more  justly  than  by 
Ratzenhofer.^^  His  thesis,  as  we  have  seen,  is  that  conflict 
is  primarily  universal,  but  that  it  tends  to  resolve  itself  into 
co-operation.  Socialization,  indeed,  is  the  transformation  of 
conflict  into  co-operation.^^  Sociological  analysis,  accord- 
ingly, involves  discrimination  and  appraisal  of  the  kind  and 

"  For  list  of  possible  social  forms  vide  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 
Vol.  VI,  p.  390. 

"  Grundriss  der  Sociologie. 

"Particularly  Wesen  und  Zxveck,  Part  II,  sees.  17-27,  and  Sociologische 
Erkenntniss,  sec.  30. 

**  This  thesis  is  represented  in  the  schedules  above,  p.  216. 


500  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

quantity   of   conflict   present   in   each   society   with   which   it 
deals.^^ 

7.  Social  Situations. —  This  concept  is,  of  course,  essen- 
tially psychological.  Indeed,  any  attempt  to  conceive  of  asso- 
ciation in  terms  of  activity,  or  psychologically,  presupposes 
the  idea  for  which  the  term  "  social  situation  "  is  a  symbol. 

In  a  word^  a  "  social  situation  "  is  any  portion  of  experi- 
ence brought  to  attention  as  a  point  in  time  or  space  at  which 
a  tension  of  social  forces  is  present.  More  simply,  a  "  social 
situation  "  is  any  circle  of  human  relationships  thought  of  as 
belonging  together,  and  presenting  the  problem:  What  are 
the  elements  involved  in  this  total,  and  how  do  these  elements 
affect  each  other?  This  term,  again,  like  the  term  "group," 
carries  no  dogmatic  assumptions.  It  is  not  a  means  of  smug- 
gling into  sociology  any  insidious  theory.  It  is  simply  one 
of  the  inevitable  terms  for  the  sort  of  thing  in  which  all  the 
sociologists  find  their  problems.  A  "  social  situation  "  is  any 
phase  of  human  life,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  which 
invites  observation,  description,  explanation.  For  instance, 
the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  when  hesitating  between  the  tra- 
ditional patriarchal  order  and  a  monarchical  organization, 
presents  a  "social  situation;"  a  quarrel  between  husband  and 
wife,  threatening  the  disruption  of  a  single  family,  presents 
a  "  social  situation ;"  the  existing  treaty  stipulations  between 
the  commercial  nations  constitute  a  "  social  situation ;"  the 
terms  of  a  contract,  and  the  disposition  of  the  parties  toward 
those  terms,  in  the  case  of  a  single  employer  and  his  employees, 
present  equally  a  "social  situation."  That  is,  the  term  is  sim- 
ply a  convenient  generic  designation  for  every  kind  and  degree 
of  social  combination  which  for  the  time  being  attracts  atten- 
tion as  capable  of  consideration  by  itself.  The  term  is  inno- 
cent of  theoretical  implications.  It  is  simply  serviceable  as  a 
colorless  designation  of  the  phenomena  which  the  sociologist 
must  investigate. 

"  Cf.     Ross,     Foundations    of    Sociology,    pp.     272     f. :     "  Group-to-Group 
Struggle  within   Society." 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
ASSOCIATION;    THE  SOCIAL;    THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS 

I.  Association. —  The  sociologist  looks  out  on  the  same 
world  of  people  that  other  students  of  the  social  sciences  con- 
front, but  he  looks  with  an  interest  that  focalizes  his  attention 
in  a  distinctive  way.  Other  students  want  to  know  orders  of 
facts  and  relations  that  to  him  are  merely  helps  to  perception, 
and  then  to  comprehension  of  other  facts  and  relations  which 
inhere  in  the  same  social  reality.  The  ethnologist,  for  instance, 
wants  to  know  the  facts  of  racial  association.  The  sociolo- 
gist says :  "  Perhaps  we  assume  too  much  when  we  start  with 
the  presumption  that  the  profoundest  truths  about  racial  asso- 
ciation are  to  be  discovered  by  studying  racial  associations 
alone.  It  may  be  that  some  of  the  peculiarities  which  we 
find  in  racial  associations,  and  which  we  regard  as  attributes 
of  race,  are  incidents  of  geographical,  or  political,  or  voca- 
tional, or  cultural,  or  sexual,  or  merely  personal  association. 
It  may  be  that  some  of  the  things  which  we  attribute  to  race 
occur  in  mobs  made  up  of  an  indiscriminate  mixture  of  races. 
There  are  innumerable  sorts  of  association  in  which  there  is 
action  and  reaction  of  individuals  with  very  marked  results. 
Consequently  we  need  to  investigate  associations  of  all  orders, 
if  we  are  to  be  sure  that  things  which  we  attribute  to  mem- 
bership of  one  association  are  not  equally  or  more  character- 
istic of  other  associations.  It  is  by  this  extension  of  view 
alone  that  we  shall  be  able  to  trace  the  ultimate  and  funda- 
mental relationships  between  individuals." 

When  we  approach  the  study  of  men  from  this  center  of 
attention,  we  at  once  perceive  in  the  world  of  people  certain 
facts  that  are  evidently  of  tremendous  significance,  which, 
however,  have  not  yet  attracted  sufficient  notice  to  be  made 
the  objects  of  severe  scientific  criticism.     We  have  these  facts 

501 


c 


502  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

given  to  us  piecemeal  by  all  the  perceptive  means  and  processes 
within  the  competence  of  ordinary  experience  and  of  the  tra- 
ditional social  sciences.  Our  education  makes  it  impossible  for 
us  to  think  of  the  world  of  people  without  thinking  certain 
relations  between  people.  This  is  both  an  advantage  and  a 
disadvantage,  from  the  sociological  point  of  view;  for,  on 
the  one  hand,  we  must  use  these  particular  means  of  knowing 
people  in  association  in  order  to  get  our  data;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  thereby  get  our  data  mixed  with  conventional 
construings  of  the  data  that,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  pre- 
judge the  very  questions  which  our  center  of  interest  brings 
into  focus.  This,  however,  is  not  peculiar  to  sociology.  It 
takes  place  in  every  field  of  research,  as  knowledge  advances 
from  the  less  exact  to  the  more  exact. 

The  sociologist  has  taken  up  the  clue  that  certain  princi- 
ples of  regularity  run  through  all  human  associations,  and  he 
wants  to  find  out  what  these  principles  are.  There  are  vari- 
ous possible  ways  of  approaching  the  study,  and  we  are  now 
exhibiting  the  beginnings  of  one  of  them.  In  a  word,  the  pre- 
liminary process  that  we  are  outlining  is  this :  We  survey  all 
human  associations  that  we  can  bring  within  our  present  field 
of  view,  and  we  set  down  features  that  seem  to  us  to  be 
common  to  human  association  in  general.  If  there  is  any 
force  in  the  precedents  of  all  other  scientific  inquiry,  the  data 
that  we  thus  select  as  the  material  to  be  studied  have  a  very 
different  look  at  the  outset  from  tlw?  appearance  which  they 
will  have  after  all  available  processes  of  investigation  have 
been  exhausted  upon  them.  We  do  not  select  specific  data 
and  forthwith  pronounce  them  dogmatic  conclusions,  any  more 
than  we  sit  down  at  the  beginning  of  a  journev  and  declare 
ourselves  at  the  end.  The  things  that  we  see  in  human  asso- 
ciations in  general,  with  such  insight  as  we  are  able  to  bring 
to  bear  on  them  now,  are  merely  some  of  the  data  of  sociology, 
and  with  these  data  sociology  must  begin  to  do  its  peculiar 
work.  How  accurate  are  these  preliminarv  generalizations? 
What  similar  generalizations  must  be  added  in  order  to  sched- 


ASSOCIATION  503 

ule  all  the  traits  common  to  associations  of  men  ?  What  more 
intimate  laws  are  contained  in  these  data?  Such  questions 
set  the  problems  for  sociology. 

To  illustrate:  We  have  long  had  statisticians  of  various 
sorts.  They  have  tried  to  enumerate  and  classify  various 
details  of  human  association.  Whether  or  not  they  have  ever 
thought  it  worth  while  to  formulate  such  an  obvious  truism 
as  that  association  always  involves  a  greater  or  less  numerous- 
ness  of  inc^viduals  associating,  the  generalization  is-^datum 
of  common  and  of  scientific  experience.  The  query  arises : 
Do  associations  take  on  varying  qualities  with  varying  numer- 
ousness  of  the  associated  individuals?  This  query  at  once 
makes  the  axiom  and  truism  of  statistical  science  a  datum 
that  demands  a  whole  system  of  inquiries  which  belong  in 
wider  reaches  of  sociological  science.^ 

Again,  the  ethnologist  discovers  that  one  human  associa- 
tion is  what  it  is  because  of  other  associations  with  which  it 
is  in  contact.  The  church  historian  discovers  that  religious 
associations  have  been  molded  by  political  associations,  and 
the  political  historian  tells  us  that  governmental  associations 
in  one  State  have  been  modified  by  contact  with  governmental 
associations  in  another  State.  Here  is  the  fact  of  interde- 
pendence. The  sociologist  says:  This  is  not  an  isolated  phe- 
nomenon. Wherever  there  are  human  associations  there  are 
interdependences  among  the  units,  and  between  the  association 
itself  and  other  associations.  This  fact  of  interdependence 
must  be  understood,  then,  in  its  full  significance,  if  we  are  to 
comprehend  the  conditions  and  laws  of  human  association  in 
their  widest  and  deepest  scope. 

Again,  demography,  and  the  history  of  science  and  philoso- 
phy, show  people  in  their  spatial  distribution  and  in  their  vari- 
ous degrees  of  remoteness  from  each  other  in  ideas.  The 
social  psychologist  generalizes  this  commonplace  circumstance, 

*  Vide  Simmel,  "  The  Meaning  of  the  Number  of  Members  for  the 
Sociological  Form  of  the  Group,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  VIII, 
pp.  I   and  158. 


504  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

and  detects  in  it  a  clue  to  significant  regularities  of  fact  and 
process  in  association.  He  derives  from  all  that  he  knows 
about  men  in  association  the  datum  that  discontinuity  of  some 
sort  and  some  degree  is  universal  among  men  in  association. 
He  sets  this  datum  down  in  the  list  of  things  that  must  be 
known  more  completely  in  all  its  bearings  upon  the  actions 
of  men  in  contact  with  each  other. 

So  we  might  go  through  a  list  which  we  may  name  "  inci- 
dents "  of  association.  They  are  data  of  sociology,  deposits 
of  much  observation  of  the  world  of  people  from  many  points 
of  view,  but  raw  material  with  which  we  begin  a  study  of  men 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  sociologist:  i.  e.,  when  we  want  to 
correlate  all  that  we  can  learn  about  the  world  of  people  into 
accounts  of  the  laws  of  human  association  in  general.  In  other 
words,  there  are  larger  truths  in  the  law'S  of  human  association 
than  emerge  when  we  study  in  turn  particular  kinds  of  associa- 
tion. Those  studies  of  particular  kinds  of  association  are  incom- 
plete, therefore,  until  they  are  merged  into  knowledge  of  these 
larger  truths.  The  task  of  finding  out  precisely  what  these 
larger  truths  are,  and  how  they  are  related  to  each  other,  fur- 
nishes the  primary  problems  of  sociology. 

Our  survey  up  to  this  point  suffices  to  sharpen  a  simple 
perception  which  must  presently  afford  much  needed  light  on 
sociology.  There  has  been  endless  perplexity  among  sociolo- 
gists about  the  concept  "society."  It  has  been  asserted,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  if  there  is  to  be  a  science  of  society,  there 
must  first  be  a  definition  of  society.  By  others  it  has  been 
urged,  with  equal  confidence,  that  the  definition  of  society 
must  of  necessity  be  a  product  of  a  science  of  society,  and 
cannot  be  had  until  the  science  is  relatively  complete.  There 
is  an  element  of  truth  in  l30th  these  contentions,  and  both  may 
be  urged  with  somewhat  similar  force  in  connection  with  the 
reality  "  association." 

The  perception  that  should  resolve  the  difficulty,  however, 
is  that  the  universal  fact  of  association  in  the  world  of  people 
is  not  to  be  taken  as  a  closed  concept,  containing  assorted 


ASSOCIATION  50s 

implications  to  be  drawn  out  by  deduction  as  a  system  of 
sociology.  The  fact  of  association  is  rather  an  open  world, 
to  be  inductively  described  and  explained.  It  is  a  fact  of 
indefinitely  varied  forms,  kinds,  degrees,  extents.  Wherever 
there  are  two  men  there  is  association.  Between  all  the  men 
in  the  known  world  there  is  association.  There  is  the  close, 
constant,  firm  association  of  the  family  group.  There  is  the 
loose,  transitory,  precarious  association  of  the  world's  sympa- 
thizers with  Dreyfus  or  Aguinaldo  or  the  Boers.  There  are 
associations  spatial,  vocational,  purely  spiritual.  There  are 
associations  as  persistent  as  the  Celestial  Empire  and  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  there  are  associations  that  form 
and  dissolve  in  a  day.  In  short,  association  can  be  defined  in 
advance  only  in  a  formula  which  is  essentially  interrogative, 
viz.,  as  the  functioning  of  related  individuals.  This  function- 
ing has  to  be  traced  out,  not  merely  at  the  first  point  of  con- 
tact between  individuals,  but  throughout  the  whole  chain  of 
relationships  of  which  a  particular  contact  closes  the  circuit. 

Sociologists  are  accordingly  less  and  less  inclined  to  go 
through  the  motions  of  performing  the  impossible.  Indica- 
tion, not  definition,  of  subject-matter  belongs  at  the  beginning 
of  every  inductive  process.  The  task  of  sociology  is  primarily 
to  make  out  the  orders  of  human  association,  and  so  far  as 
possible  to  determine  the  formulas  of  forces  that  operate  in 
these  several  orders.  Association  is  activity,  not  locality. 
Like  states  of  consciousness,  it  has  to  be  known  in  terms  of 
process,  not  in  dimensions  of  space.  To  make  headway  with 
the  sociological  task  we  must  abandon  pretentious  a  priori 
conceptions  of  all  sorts,  and  patiently  investigate  concrete 
human  associations  until  they  reveal  their  mystery.  Human 
associations  overlap  and  interlace  and  clash  and  coalesce  in 
bewildering  variety  of  fashions.  Sociology  has  at  last  become 
conscious  of  the  problem  of  reducing  this  complexity  to  scien- 
tific statement  of  form  and  force  and  method. 

Human  association  is  men  accomplishing  themselves. 
Here  is  a  dialectic  the  two  poles  of  which  are  perpetually 


5o6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

reinforcing  each  other.  The  men  are  making  the  association, 
and  the  association  is  making  the  men.  Parallel  with  this 
reciprocity  in  fact,  there  must  be  a  reciprocity  in  theory.  The 
two  poles  of  the  dialectic  must  perpetually  interpret  each 
other.  We  cannot  know  the  men  except  as  we  discover  them 
in  terms  of  their  accomplishing;  and  we  cannot  know  the 
accomplishing  except  as  we  discover  it  in  terms  of  the  men. 
If  we  are  satisfied  with  any  less  comprehensive  statement  of 
the  case,  we  either  make  up  a  false  process,  or  we  fail  to  see 
that  the  whole  thing  is  one  process  working  itself  out  from 
centers  of  consciousness  that  are  poles  of  other  centers  of 
consciousness.  The  psychologist  and  the  sociologist  are  try- 
ing to  tunnel  the  life-process  from  opposite  sides;  the  one 
from  the  individual,  the  other  from  the  associational  side; 
but  there  is  no  way  for  either  of  them  through  the  life-reality, 
unless  it  is  a  way  in  which  they  meet  at  last.  Dropping  the 
clumsy  figure,  we  may  say  literally  that  the  sociologist  has  the 
task  of  formulating  man  in  his  associational  self-assertions. 
The  psychologist  has  the  task  of  formulating  man  in  the 
mechanism  of  his  self-assertions.^ 

^  The  conceptions  which  these  last  paragraphs  try  to  fix  are  not  the 
property  of  any  one  individual,  certainly  not  my  own.  So  far  as  I  can  trace 
my  share  of  them  to  definite  sources,  they  are  due  largely  to  a  sort  of  tele- 
pathic communication  for  years  with  my  colleagues  of  the  philosophical 
department  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  and  to  Professor  J.  Mark  Baldwin's 
Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations.  My  debt  to  the  latter  source  is  none  the 
less  clear,  although  I  am  unable  to  adopt  all  of  Professor  Baldwin's  con- 
clusions. For  instance,  I  am  disposed  to  dissent  from  his  views  on  three  out 
of  the  four  cases  of  the  "  extra-social  "  which  he  specifies  in  the  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  650  f.  As  a  sample  of  the  former  sort  of 
stimulus,  a  remark  by  Professor  Dewey  may  be  quoted  :  "  The  effort  to  apply 
psychology  to  social  affairs  means  that  the  determination  of  ethical  values 
lies,  not  in  any  set  or  class,  however  superior,  but  in  the  workings  of  the 
social  whole  ;  that  the  explanation  is  found  in  the  complex  interactions  and 
interrelations  which  constitute  this  whole.  To  save  personality  in  all  we 
must  serve  all  alike  —  state  the  achievements  of  all  in  terms  of  mechanism, 
that  is,  of  the  exercise  of  reciprocal  influence.  To  affirm  personality  inde- 
pendent of  mechanism  is  to  restrict  its  full  meaning  to  a  few,  and  to  make 
its  expression  in  the  few  irregular  and  arbitrary."  ^Psychological  Review, 
March,   1900,  p.   123.) 


ASSOCIATION  507 

It  is  true  in  more  than  one  sense  that  "  none  of  us  liveth 
unto  himself."  We  hve  and  move  and  have  our  being  as  parts 
of  each  other.  There  is  no  such  phenomenon  within  the  range 
of  our  knowledge  as  an  absolute  individual.  Every  member 
of  the  human  race  gets  his  personality  through  direct  and 
immediate  partnership  with  other  members  of  the  human  race, 
and  through  indirect  contact  with  all  the  human  family.  We 
are  what  we  are  by  virtue  of  association  with  other  men.  This 
association  is  conscious  or  unconscious.  It  is  constant  or 
variable.  It  is  intimate  and  inclusive,  or  casual  and  exclusive. 
It  is  friendly  and  conservative  and  constructive,  or  it  is  hos- 
tile and  disintegrating  and  destructive.  If  there  are  abso- 
lutely universal  facts  in  the  world  of  people,  besides  the 
existence  of  the  people  themselves,  surely  one  of  those  facts 
is  the  existence  of  associations  between  the  people,  or  the 
existence  of  the  people  in  associations.  The  physical  life  of 
each  individual  is,  in  its  origin,  a  phenomenon  of  association. 
The  nurture  of  the  young  is  an  episode  of  association.  The 
daily  walk  of  the  vast  majority  of  men,  civilized  or  uncivi- 
lized, is  in  part  activity  within  one  or  more  assocations.  We 
may  think  of  separate  persons  as  pursuing  a  career  that  is  an 
affair  of  their  own  isolated  individuality,  or  strictly  between 
themselves  and  nature  or  between  themselves  and  God.  If 
we  put  this  construction  upon  the  life  of  any  person,  how- 
ever, we  falsify  his  life.  Every  man  is  what  he  is  as  a  result- 
ant in  part  of  the  pressure  of  the  human  associations  within 
which  his  personality  has  its  orbit.  The  concept  "  human 
life,"  whether  we  try  to  construct  it  for  individuals  or  for 
the  race  at  large,  is  a  fictitious  and  unreal  picture,  unless  it 
includes  the  notion  "association."  Association  is  the  univer- 
sal medium  in  which  the  individual  comes  to  separate  exist- 
ence. Association  is  the  universal  activity  in  which  the  indi- 
vidual completes  his  existence  by  merging  it  into  the  larger 
life  of  all  individuals. 

Some  of  the  concepts  in  our  schedule  may  be  classed  as 
highly  imaginative.    They  may  be  criticised  as  theoretical  and 


So8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

even  fanciful.  Of  course,  we  would  not  admit  the  claim,  but 
there  might  be  plausible  pretexts  for  urging  it.  The  present 
term,  however,  is  only  in  the  slightest  degree  open  to  that 
impeachment.  It  calls  attention  to  one  of  the  constant  and 
universal  facts  of  the  human  situation.  It  puts  that  fact  in 
the  form  of  a  generalized  expression.  It  thereby  registers  a 
fundamental  condition  of  every  human  problem.  This  condi- 
tion cannot  be  eliminated  or  ignored  without  reading  the  situa- 
tion itself  out  of  existence.  In  a  word,  the  term  means  that 
whatever  has  to  do  with  human  society  thereby  has  to  do  with 
meti  associating  or  in  association.  Society  and  association 
connote  and  presuppose  and  imply  and  involve  each  other. 
As  terms  they  are  correlates,  as  facts  they  are  essentially  iden- 
tical. 

But  it  is  objected,  on  the  other  hand  :  "  This  goes  without 
saying.  It  should  be  taken  for  granted.  We  canot  talk  about 
society  without  assuming  it.  To  say  that  society  is  associa- 
tion, or  that  all  men  live  in  association,  is  a  commonplace  and 
a  platitude.  It  is  not  science,  but  only  a  parody  and  a  bur- 
lesque of  science,"  The  answer  is  that  the  fallacy  of  all  falla- 
cies is  the  turning  of  the  real  into  the  unreal  by  neglecting  the 
obvious.  This  concept  "  association "  thrusts  itself  upon 
every  man  in  his  senses,  but  the  history  of  philosophy  down  to 
the  present  moment  is  strewn  thick  with  proof  that  men  may 
be  preternaturally  skilful  in  avoiding  it.  Rousseau  would  have 
been  a  man  without  an  occupation  if  he  and  his  dupes  had 
accepted  association  as  a  literal,  universal  fact.  The  theory 
of  the  "social  contract"  would  have  perished  still-born,  if 
this  commonplace  of  association  had  been  brought  to  bear  upon 
it.  The  whole  individualistic  philosophy,  in  all  its  shades  and 
qualities,  from  Cain  to  Nietzsche,  would  have  been  estopped 
if  men  had  given  due  heed  to  this  fact  of  association.  The 
world  would  have  been  spared  most  of  the  theological  contro- 
versies of  the  Christian  centuries,  and  we  should  not  have 
wandered  until  now  in  a  labyrinth  of  ethical  theories  that 
apply  only  to  a  world  which  never  was,  if  this  commonplace 


ASSOCIATION  509 

of  universal  association  had  been  allowed  its  natural  and 
necessary  value.  All  that  we  are,  all  that  we  think,  all  that 
we  do,  is  a  function  of  our  fellow-beings  before  and  beside  and 
beyond  ourselves. 

We  are  not  professing  that  the  term  "  association  "  reveals 
anything  new,  except  in  the  sense  that  every  generalization  of 
familiar  things  is  a  revelation.  Every  man  who  had  ever  seen 
apples  on  a  tree  knew  that,  if  the  stem  broke,  the  apples  would 
fall  to  the  ground;  but  it  took  Newton  to  express  the  fact  in 
a  form  that  took  in  all  the  like  facts  in  the  world.  When 
Newton  made  his  generalization  of  the  law  of  gravitation, 
it  did  not  tell  any  new  facts,  but  it  enabled  people  for  the 
first  time  to  see  a  like  element  in  a  multitude  of  old  facts 
which  had  not  seemed  to  have  any  common  element  of  likeness 
before.  So  our  present  term  does  not  purport  to  increase 
the  sum  of  knowledge.  It  merely  arranges  knowledge  so  that 
it  may  be  put  to  more  intelligent  use. 

Of  course,  there  is  no  magical  value  in  a  word.  This 
term  "association"  explains  nothing,  although  the  moment 
we  get  the  perception  that  every  individual  or  social  situation 
is  a  fraction  and  an  episode  of  an  association,  we  have  a 
pointer  toward  explanations.  The  term,  like  all  those  which 
this  resume  emphasizes,  merely  affixes  a  name  to  a  constant 
phase  of  human  facts.  It  thereby  signalizes  the  reality  of  that 
phase  of  things.  It  records  the  importance  of  the  reality, 
and  it  invites  attention  to  the  reality.  In  thus  proposing  a 
technical  term  for  one  of  the  universal  conditions  of  human 
life,  we  remove  one  of  the  excuses  for  false,  distorted,  ficti- 
tious versions  of  the  facts  of  life.  Like  each  of  the  terms  in 
our  schedule,  our  present  term,  "association,"  proves  to  be  a 
mute  cross-examiner  of  all  evidence  and  theory  about  social 
facts;  e.  g.,  we  have  a  concrete  problem,  say  a  juvenile  delin- 
quent, a  widespread  practice  of  tax-dodging  in  a  city,  an 
astounding  indifference  of  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe 
toward  Turkish  misrule. 

There  is  not  only  a  possible,  but  a  very  familiar,  way  of 


510  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

treating  situations  of  which  these  are  types,  as  though  the 
fact  of  association  did  not  exist.  To  be  sure,  it  cannot  be 
utterly  exckided  from  anyone's  attention,  but  it  is  made  almost 
a  negligible  quantity.  If  the  total-depravity  theory  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  used  as  the  explanation,  if  the  action  of  a  community 
or  a  nation  is  accounted  for  solely  by  hypotheses  of  qualities 
within  its  members,  the  fact  and  the  force  of  association  are 
virtually  ignored.  With  this  concept  in  mind,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  are  bound  to  ask :  What  have  the  associates  of  the 
boy  or  the  men  or  the  nations  to  do  with  their  acts  ? 

The  result  is  that  we  find  a  ground  for  the  familiar  pro- 
verbial wisdom  of  all  times  and  peoples;  e.  g. :  "Evil  com- 
munications corrupt  good  manners;"  "A  man  is  known  by 
the  company  he  keeps;"  "Cherchez  la  femmc;"  etc.;  i.  e., 
whatever  our  philosophy,  we  have  always  in  practice  looked 
in  other  people  for  some  part  of  the  reasons  for  the  actions 
of  given  individuals  or  groups.  The  boy  in  the  slums  may 
afford  no  more  real  evidence  of  depravity  than  the  boy  on 
the  boulevards,  but  the  difference  of  his  associates,  young  and 
old,  turns  the  scale.  The  men  who  dodge  taxes  in  New  York 
or  Chicago  may  be  in  themselves  no  worse  than  other  men, 
but  they  may  have  a  belief  that  other  men  turn  the  public 
revenues  to  private  benefit,  and  that  still  other  men,  in  other 
parts  of  the  state,  escape  burdens  that  are  loaded  upon  the 
cities.  Their  tax-dodging  may  be  no  more  praiseworthy,  but, 
instead  of  being  an  act  of  unmitigated  meanness  and  unsocia- 
bility, we  find  it  has  an  element  at  least  of  self-defense,  and 
quite  natural,  if  not  justifiable,  retaliation.  So  England's 
inertness  in  the  face  of  Turkish  atrocities  proves  to  be  less 
from  English  indifference  than  from  Russia's  watchfulness 
of  opportunity,  and  vice  versa.  In  a  word,  all  human  facts, 
from  those  most  narrowly  individual  to  those  which  concern 
the  whole  living  population  of  the  world,  are  to  be  understood 
fairly  and  fully  only  as  phases  of  the  larger  ranges  of  facts 
with  which  they  are  associated. 

2.  The  Social. —  With  this  term  we  denote  a  concept 


THE  SOCIAL  5" 

which  is  less  directly  available  outside  of  technical  sociology 
than  many  in  our  schedule.  For  the  professional  sociologist, 
however,  it  is  a  matter  of  prime  importance  to  find  for  this 
concept  a  distinct  and  clear  content.  If  he  is  confused  or 
vague  at  this  point,  his  whole  sociology  will  be  indistinct.^ 

.The  social  fact  is,  first,  the  evolution  of  the  individual 
through,  second,  the  evolution  of  institutions,  and  the  inciden- 
tal reaction  of  all  the  individuals  and  institutions  upon  each 
other.  That  is,  at  any  given  moment  individuals  and  institu- 
tions are  alike  in  full  course  of  modification  by  the  action  of 
each  upon  the  other.  The  individual  of  today  is  being  modi- 
fied by  his  contacts  with  other  individuals,  and  by  his  contacts 
with  today's  institutions.  Tomorrow's  individuals  will  not 
be  wholly  the  causes  or  the  effects  of  tomorrow's  institutions. 
Each  is  both  cause  and  effect  of  the  other. 

One  of  the  primary  tasks  of  sociology  is  to  make  out  the 
proper  content  of  the  concept  "social,"  by  which  we  distin- 
guish that  which  is  more-than-individual  in  the  human  process. 
We  may  vary  our  proposition  by  saying  that  the  formal  term 
"  social "  is  a  symbol  for  all  that  in  associations  which  is  of 
direct  concern  to  sociology.  Or,  conversely,  sociology  is  in 
quest  of  those  things  which  pertain  to  associations  as  such, 
and  the  general  term  for  those  things  is  "  the  social." 

The  "  social,"  then,  is  the  reciprocity  and  the  reciprocality 
between  the  persons  that  live  and  move  and  have  their  being 
as  centers  of  reaction  in  a  world  filled  with  like  centers. 
Here  is  the  material  for  the  "organic  concept."  It  gets  its 
meaning  as  the  antithesis  of  all  atomistic  individuahstic  phi- 
losophies. We  are  what  we  are  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  other 
men,  from  the  remote  past  and  from  the  immediate  present, 
are  continually  depositing  a  part  of  themselves  in  us,  and 
taking  a  part  of  us  into  their  make-up  in  return.^     This  inter- 

'  I  have  illustrated  this  at  some  length  in  a  review  of  Professor  Giddings' 
Inductive  Sociology,  in  Science,  May  2,   1902. 

*  I  hope  to  be  forgiven  for  a  figure  that  harks  back  toward  the  notion  of 
stuff,  rather  than  process,  as  the  reality  behind  associational  phenomena.     No 


512  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

action  of  persons  is  the  realm  of  the  social.  It  is  the  next 
higher  order  of  complexity  above  that  set  of  reactions  which 
we  call  the  individual  consciousness. 

Tennyson  gave  us  a  picture  of  the  *'  Two  Voices  "  in  the 
same  personality — a  very  slight  variation  in  detail  upon  St. 
Paul's  psychological  analysis  of  himself :  "  For  the  good  that 
I  would  I  do  not;  but  the  evil  that  I  would  not,  that  I  do."** 
Each  man  is  in  himself  a  society,  not  of  two,  but  of  innumer- 
able voices,  severally  striving  for  utterance,  but  resolving 
themselves  into  some  resultant  activity  that  stands  for  the 
algebraic  total  of  stimulus  and  response  in  the  whole.®  Two 
men  become  a  society  in  which  conditions  that  were  possible 
in  the  consciousness  of  each  without  contact  with  another  per- 
sonal factor  now  have  to  compose  themselves  with  reactions 
set  in  motion  by  contact  of  each  with  the  other. 

The  social,  then,  is  all  the  give-and-takeness  there  is, 
whether  more  or  less,  between  the  persons  anywhere  in  con- 
tact. The  realm  of  the  social  comprises  all  the  give-and- 
takings  that  occur  among  men.  If  we  want  to  know  the 
quality  or  the  qualities  of  the  social,  we  have  to  inspect  these 
givings  and  takings  in  the  largest  possible  number  and  variety 
of  associations,  and  to  note  and  classify  their  qualities.  So 
far  as  we  have  gone,  we  find  that  the  social  is,  qualitatively, 
not  one  thing,  but  many  things.  It  is  Tarde's  "  imitation " 
and  it  is  "Ward's  "misomimetism."  It  is  Durkheim's  "con- 
straint "  and  it  is  Nietzsche's  defiance  of  constraint.  It  is 
attraction  and  it  is  repulsion.  It  is  mutual  aid  and  it  is  mutual 
hindrance.  It  is  consciousness  of  kind  and  it  is  consciousness 
of  unkind.  It  is  selection  and  it  is  rejection.  It  is  adaptation 
and  it  is  the  tearing  to  pieces  of  adaptations.  Furthermore,  if 
we  want  to  know  the  laws  of  the  social,  we  have  the  task,  first 

one  will  feel  the  difficulty  but  the  psychologists,  tind  I  trust  any  of  them  who 
may  chance  upon  these  pages  to  accept  my  word  that  I  do  not  mean  to  press 
the  figure  to  that  length. 

'  Rom.  7:19. 

'  Cf.  quotation   from  Tarda  below,  p.  546. 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  513 

of  formulating  these  give-and-takings  in  all  their  meaning 
relations,  and  then  of  deriving  the  equations  of  their  action, 
just  as  astronomers  or  chemists  or  physiologists  have  to  derive 
the  laws  of  reactions  within  their  several  fields. 

3.  The  Social  Process^ — Again  we  have  to  deal  with 
a  concept  which  the  psychologists  have  been  elaborating  simul- 
taneously with  the  sociologists.  It  is  impossible  to  distribute 
credit  for  work  at  this  point.  It  is  sufficient  to  acknowledge 
that  the  sociologists  have  doubtless  been  assisted  by  the  psy- 
chologists more  than  they  are  aware,  in  expressing  the  social 
reality  in  this  aspect. 

In  this  case,  too,  we  are  dealing  with  a  concept  which  is 
among  the  most  necessary  of  the  sociological  categories,  for 
organizing  all  orders  of  social  knowledge,  from  the  most  con- 
crete to  the  most  generalized.  That  is,  we  have  not  arrived 
at  the  stage  of  sophistication  peculiar  to  our  epoch,  unless  we 
have  learned  to  think  of  that  part  of  human  experience  to 
which  we  give  attention  as  a  term  or  terms  in  a  process.  The 
use  of  the  word  is  immaterial.  The  possession  of  the  idea,  the 
perception  of  the  relation  between  portions  of  experience,  is 
essential.  We  do  not  represent  human  experience  to  ourselves 
as  it  is,  unless  we  think  every  portion  of  it  as  a  factor  in  a 
process  composed  of  all  human  experiences. 

In  the  absence  of  any  canonical  formula  of  the  concept 
"  process  "  the  following  is  proposed :  A  process  is  a  collec- 
tion of  occurrences,  each  of  which  has  a  meaning  for  every 
other,  the  zvhole  of  zvhich  constitutes  some  sort  of  becoming. 

The  thesis  corresponding  with  the  title  of  this  section  is : 
Every  portion  of  human  experience  has  relations  which 
require  application  of  this  concept  "  process."  Human  asso- 
ciation is  a  process.  Every  act  of  every  man  has  a  meaning 
for  every  act  of  every  other  man.  The  act  of  Columbus  in 
discovering  America  is  going  on  in  the  act  of  reflecting  on  this 

'  Vide  Giddings,  Principles  of  Sociology,  Book  IV,  chap,  i,  "  The  Social 
Process ;  "  chap.  2,  "  The  Social  Process,  Psychical ;  "  also,  Ratzenhofer, 
Sociologische  Erkenntniss,  Part  IV. 


514  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

proposition,  and  our  reflection  upon  this  proposition  has  a  bear- 
ing upon  every  act  of  every  man  now  living  or  hereafter  to 
live  in  America,  All  the  acts  together  which  make  up  the 
experiences  of  men  in  connection  with  America  constitute  the 
becoming  of  a  social  whole,  and  an  organizing  and  operation 
of  that  whole  beyond  limits  which  we  can  imagine,  "  At 
the  beginning,  then,  of  every  uniformity  may  be  found  a 
process,  which  process  exhibits  a  regularity  that  permits  the 
formulation  of  laws,"® 

Our  present  thesis  anticipates  nothing  with  reference  to  the 
nature  of  the  social  process,  or  its  mechanism,  or  its  results. 
We  are  concerned  at  the  start  merely  with  the  empty,  formal 
conception  that,  so  far  as  it  goes,  whether  taken  in  its  minutest 
fragments  or  in  the  largest  reaches  which  we  can  contem- 
plate, human  experience  is  a  congeries  of  occurrences  which 
have  their  meaning  by  reference  to  each  other.  The  task  of 
getting  for  this  concept,  "the  social  process,"  vividness, 
impressiveness,  and  content,  is  one  of  the  rudiments  of  both 
social  and  sociological  pedagogy.  That  is,  if  we  are  trying 
to  get  the  kind  of  knowledge  about  society  which  the  sociolo- 
gist claims  to  be  all  that  is  w^orth  getting,  because  it  is  all  that 
is  complete  in  itself,  all  that  goes  beyond  partialness  and  nar- 
rowness and  shallowness,  we  must  learn  to  analyze  that  portion 
of  experience  which  we  are  studying,  in  terms  of  the  process 
which  it  is  performing.  For  instance,  suppose  we  are  study- 
ing history.  Our  attention  will  be  given  either  to  more  or 
less  detached  series  of  events,  or  we  must  ask :  "  Just  what 
phase  of  the  social  process  is  going  forward  in  this  period?" 
A  conception  of  the  general  meaning  of  the  period  as  a  whole 
gives  us  clues  to  the  proportions  and  other  relations  between 
the  particular  events.  It  gives  us  pointers  about  the  classes 
of  occurrences  best  worth  watching  in  the  period.  It  enables 
us  to  determine  in  some  measure  whether  we  have  actually 
become  acquainted  with  the  period,  or  have  merely  amused 

•Ross,  Foundations  of  Sociology,  p.  91. 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  515 

ourselves  with  a  few  curious  details  which  had  a  certain  frac- 
tional value  within  the  period. 

To  make  the  illustration  more  specific,  suppose  our  atten- 
tion is  given  to  the  French  Revolution.  Thousands  of  writers 
have  described  facts  and  essayed  interpretations  of  the  Revo- 
lution, without  having  approached  the  sociological  conception 
of  the  meaning  of  the  period.  Expressed  in  the  rough,  study 
of  the  French  Revolution,  under  guidance  of  the  sociological 
categories,  would  proceed  somewhat  after  this  fashion : 

First :  All  the  activities  of  the  French  during  the  period 
accomplished  some  portion  of  the  process  of  realizing  the 
essential  human  interests.  What  was  that  portion  of  the 
process  in  its  large  outlines?  The  question  sends  us  forth  to 
get  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  Revolution  from  some  altitude 
which  will  reveal  the  great  lines  of  movement  usually  obscured 
by  the  picturesque  details  which  first  attract  attention.  Let  us 
suppose  that  we  make  out  the  following  as  the  general  process : 
The  French,  from  lowest  to  highest,  had  become  conscious  of 
wants  which  the  traditional  social  system  arbitrarily  repressed. 
The  Revolution  is  in  part  a  spontaneous,  spasmodic  effort,  and 
in  part  a  reasoned  plan,  of  the  French  to  release  themselves 
from  those  inherited  restrictions,  and  to  achieve  a  social  situa- 
tion in  which  the  wants  of  which  they  are  now  conscious,  or 
semi-conscious,  will  be  free  to  find  satisfaction. 

Second :  What,  then,  were  the  actual  wants  which  impelled 
different  portions  of  the  French  people?  In  brief,  the  peas- 
antry wanted  to  eat  the  bread  which  their  toil  produced, 
instead  of  giving  most  of  it  to  the  landlords  who  did  not  toil ; 
the  wage-earners  in  the  towns  wanted  work  enough  and  pay 
enough  to  improve  their  condition,  and  they  saw  no  way  to 
get  either  without  abolishing  the  privileges  of  the  rich.  The 
third  estate,  according  to  Sieyes'  famous  dictum,  had  been 
nothing  in  the  State  and  wanted  to  become  something;  the 
thinkers  were  enamored  of  new  notions  of  individual  rights, 
and  were  romantically  eager  to  change  the  situation  so  that 
those  rights  might  be  realized;   on  the  other  hand,  the  privi- 


Si6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

leged  classes,  the  political,  the  economic,  and  the  ecclesiastical 
aristocrats,  wanted  to  preserve  their  privileges.  They  wanted 
to  defeat  the  purposes  of  their  fellow-citizens.  They  wanted 
to  perpetuate  a  situation  in  which  the  wants  antagonistic  with 
their  own  would  continue  to  be  defeated. 

Third :  To  understand  the  Revolution  as  a  section  of  the 
social  process,  we  have  to  follow  out  the  details  of  analyzing 
these  several  classes  of  wants,  down  to  the  concrete  demands 
which  each  interest  urged,  and  of  tracing  the  relations  of  each 
occurrence  worth  noticing,  during  the  entire  episode,  to  the 
whole  complicated  interplay  of  these  desires  throughout  the 
complex  movement. 

Fourth :  To  complete  our  insight  we  have  to  reach  at  last 
a  new  expression  of  the  new  situation  in  France,  at  a  selected 
period  after  the  crisis.  We  have  to  discover  the  form,  and  the 
manner,  and  the  degree,  in  which  the  wants  that  expressed 
themselves  in  the  upheaval  realized  themselves  in  the  situation 
that  remained  after  the  upheaval.  We  thereby  have  a  measure 
of  the  absolute  motion  accomplished  by  the  French,  as  a 
result  of  the  relative  motion  between  the  units  during  the 
period.  That  is,  we  have  followed  the  process  from  some- 
thing to  something  else,  through  intermediate  correlations  of 
actions. 

Of  course,  everyone  who  has  written  history,  or  read  it, 
has  had  some  more  or  less  vague  instinct  of  the  program  just 
indicated.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  recent  writer  of  history 
who  might  not  maintain  a  plausible  argument  that  his  plan  of 
work  implied  all,  and  more  than  all,  just  specified.  Whether 
a  given  writer  or  reader  gives  due  place  to  the  process-category 
is  a  question  of  fact,  to  be  decided  on  the  merits  of  each  case. 
Our  present  business  is  to  bring  the  necessity  of  the  concept 
into  clear  view.  If  it  should  prove  that  everybody  in  practice 
uses  the  concept  already,  our  contention  that  it  is  necessary 
will  surely  not  be  weakened.  If  it  should  prove  that  the  con- 
cept is  not  as  distinctly  or  as  comprehensively  before  our  minds 
in  studying  history  as  the  contents  of  experience  require,  our 
contention  will  in  the  end  not  be  in  vain. 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  517 

Recurring  to  our  proposition  above,  that  we  must  employ 
the  concept  social  process,  whether  we  are  getting  intelHgencc 
about  society  by  studying  strictly  past  events  or  present  prob- 
lems, we  may  put  the  case  again,  in  more  concrete  form,  by 
applying  the  argument  to  the  present  "  labor  problem  "  in  the 
United  States. 

To  some  people  the  case  of  the  coal  operators  and  the 
workmen  in  Pennsylvania  in  1902-3  was  merely  a  fight 
between  two  parties  for  their  rights  under  the  law.  Without 
implying  an  opinion  about  the  merits  of  any  specific  case,  we 
may  assert  that  no  one  has  a  proper  point  of  view  from  which 
to  form  an  opinion  about  a  similar  controversy,  until  he  can 
present  the  situation  to  himself  in  more  adequate  terms.  The 
fact  is  that  the  production  and  distribution  of  wealth  occur  now 
under  conditions  that  have  been  changing  very  rapidly,  not 
only  since  the  so-called  "  industrial  revolution "  of  nearly  a 
century  ago,  but  particularly  during  the  last  twenty-five  years. 
In  the  course  of  this  changing,  a  parallel  mental  process  has 
been  going  on ;  our  concepts  of  social  rights  have  undergone 
decided  modifications.  A  hundred  years  ago  American  men 
had  to  deal  only  with  other  men  like  themselves.  Today  the 
distinctive  factors  in  the  situation  are,  first,  that  racial  inter- 
mixture has  radically  changed  the  character  of  the  population ; 
and,  second,  that  a  host  of  artificial  persons  are  actors  on  the 
scene,  and  they  are  relatively  as  much  superior  to  real  persons 
as  the  mythological  gods  were  in  turning  the  tide  of  battle  now 
one  way  and  now  another  before  the  gates  of  Troy.  Corpora- 
tions—  i.  e.,  legal  persons;  giants  as  mighty  in  the  economic 
field  as  ancient  mythical  gods  Avere  in  the  field  of  war  —  have 
transformed  the  situation  in  the  working  world. 

Our  social  process  in  the  last  century  has  been  the  play  of 
five  chief  factors :  first^  the  composition  of  the  population ; 
second,  the  development  of  a  technique  of  production;  third, 
the  development  of  a  technique  of  control;  fourth,  the  devel- 
opment of  general  social  or  moral  ideas ;  fifth,  the  develop- 
ment of  a  system  of  distributing  the  output  of  our  productive 


5l8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

technique.  Today  we  are  confronted  by  the  fact  that  our  sys- 
tem of  production  has  developed  along  one  line  of  least  resist- 
ance, viz.,  that  discovered  in  the  economics  of  the  productive 
process,  while  our  system  of  distribution  has  developed  very 
largely  along  other  lines  of  least  resistance,  viz.,  in  accordance 
with  the  relative  power  in  competition  of  men,  on  the  one 
hand  more  able,  and  on  the  other  hand  less  able,  to  get  arti- 
ficial helps  in  the  struggle  for  distribution.  One  consequence 
is  that  the  results  do  not  conform  strictly  to  the  ratio  of  con- 
tributions to  production.  Meanwhile  our  politics  and  our 
social  philosophy  have  developed  in  a  sort  of  alternating  cur- 
rent between  these  main  factors  of  the  process.  Consequently, 
the  inevitable  problem  immediately  upon  us  is  that  of  recon- 
sidering and  readjusting  our  whole  scheme  of  distribution, 
with  its  underlying  concepts  of  justice. 

This  being  the  case,  every  strike,  or  other  interruption  of 
the  process,  becomes  an  implicit  challenge  to  the  thinkers  to 
find  out  what  meaning  the  interruption  has,  with  reference 
to  the  healthiness  or  unhealthiness  of  the  process  itself.  The 
immediate  question  is :  Has  either  party  failed  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  public  law  and  of  private  contracts?  This 
immediate  question,  however,  is  relatively  trivial.  The  more 
important  question  is :  Do  the  law  and  the  social  situation 
make  it  morally  certain  that  one  party  can  and  will  take  an 
unjust  advantage  of  the  other  party  in  deciding  how  the  bur- 
dens and  the  products  of  industry  shall  be  divided?  Espe- 
cially, has  the  legal  creation  of  artificial  persons  so  changed 
the  balance  of  power  between  men  that  those  who  are  simply 
left  to  their  individual  resources  as  natural  persons  are  in  an 
unjust  degree  at  the  mercy  of  those  who  are  clothed  with  the 
power  of  artificial  persons? 

These  questions  open  the  whole  problem  of  the  actual 
process  which  is  going  forward  in  our  own  day.  They  require 
knowledge  of  the  demographic,  economic,  legal,  and  moral 
factors  of  our  present  activities,  sufficient  to  justify  the  same 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  519 

kind  of  judgment  about  a  given  labor  difficulty  which  a  train- 
man forms  about  a  cracked  wheel  or  a  hot  bearing. 

The  most  characteristic  feature  in  our  American  social 
process  today  is  the  instinctive  effort  of  all  to  defend  them- 
selves against  the  superior  power  which  some  have  gained  by 
combination,  and  then  to  find  a  way  of  getting  for  themselves 
the  advantages  of  combination.  The  secret  of  multiplying 
individual  power,  and  of  intrenching  individual  security,  by 
combination  of  interests,  may  prove  to  have  been  the  most 
important  technical  discovery  which  the  nineteenth  century 
made.  The  present  stage  of  the  social  process  is  a  typical 
reaction  against  a  monopoly  of  that  discovery  by  the  few,  and 
a  typical  effort  to  get  the  benefits  of  the  discovery  for  the 
many. 

This  concept  the  social  process  is  so  central  that  the  em- 
phasis of  but  slightly  varied  restatement  will  not  be  excessive. 

Although  the  generalization  the  social  process  is  familiar 
to  the  sociologists,  its  implications  for  both  philosophical  and 
practical  theory  are  hardly  suspected.  If  we  have  in  mind  the 
essentials  connoted  by  the  concept,  we  are  forewarned  and  fore- 
armed by  it  against  temptations  which  play  the  mischief  with 
the  special  social  sciences.  Starting  with  their  selected  phases  of 
social  phenomena,  the  sciences  that  center  about  racial,  or  indus- 
trial, or  political,  or  religious  development,  as  the  case  may  be, 
have  each  tended  to  treat  human  association  as  though  it  were 
merely  variation  of  species,  or  production  of  wealth,  or  admin- 
istration of  government,  or  search  into  the  mysteries  of  the 
infinite.  When  these  sciences  try  to  interpret  real  life,  they 
too  often  lapse  into  narrow  dogmatism  or  mere  academic 
abstraction.  The  assertion  is  not  impeachment  nor  disparage- 
ment of  the  special  social  sciences.  It  is  a  means  of  pointing 
out  that  every  particular  social  science  is  an  implicit  demand 
for  the  reinforcement  of  all  the  other  social  sciences,  if  between 
them  there  is  to  be  adequate  description  of  actual  human  life. 
Society  is  a  grouping  of  groupings,  each  of  which  constantly 
modifies  every  other. 


520  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Let  us  take  the  simplest  illustration  possible.  Yonder  is 
the  walking  delegate  of  a  carpenters'  union.  He  is  inspecting 
a  half-completed  building.  He  is  a  social  phenomenon.  How 
shall  we  analyze  and  classify  him?  The  ethnologist  essays  to 
deal  with  him.  He  goes  to  work  on  his  physical  marks.  He 
detects  this  and  that  and  the  other  kind  of  heredity.  He 
tells  us  that  the  real  significance  of  this  man  is  his  place  in 
the  course  of  evolution  from  which  a  new  physical  type  is  being 
created;  and  with  his  tools  and  methods  this  is  substantially  all 
that  the  ethnologist  can  discover  about  him.  Then  comes  the 
political  scientist.  He  cares  nothing  about  the  ethnology  of 
his  specimen.  He  sees  in  him  a  political  atom.  This  man  is 
incarnate  democracy.  He  has  certain  relations  of  descent  from 
former  regimes.  He  is  in  the  line  of  influence  making  toward 
another  regime.  He  sustains  certain  relations  to  the  existing 
legal  order.  With  that  our  political  scientist  as  a  specialist  is 
done  with  him.  Then  the  orthodox  economist  takes  his  turn. 
To  him  civil  laws  are  merely  the  records  made  by  accomplished 
industrial  development.  Not  the  law,  but  the  industry  that 
goes  before  the  law,  is  the  really  important  matter.  Our  car- 
penter to  him  is  a  term  in  the  industrial  series,  and  a  factor 
in  the  economic  system.  What  he  amounts  to  as  a  wheel  in 
the  producing  mill  is  the  economist's  concern.  It  may  be  a 
social  psychologist  examines  him  next.  He  is  interested  in 
his  general  range  of  intelligence,  in  his  nervous  organization, 
in  the  sources  of  his  mental  impulses,  in  his  type  of  intellectual 
activity.  He  interprets  him  as  a  term  in  the  equation  of  influ- 
ences that  are  evolving  the  brain-processes  of  the  population. 
Then  a  minister  of  religion  comes.  He  learns  his  ecclesias- 
tical connections,  his  theological  status,  his  religious  quality. 
He  forms  conclusions  about  his  spiritual  condition.  Between 
them  these  specialists  have  pretty  thoroughly  dissected  the 
specimen,  but  all  of  them  together  mav  have  failed  to  discover 
the  social  reality  he  exhibits.  Someone  is  needed  to  combine 
these  different  dissections  of  the  specimen  into  a  view  of  the 
real  man.     He  is  an  intersection  of  all  the  groupings  which 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  521 

human  beings  form  in  the  pursuit  of  all  the  ends  of  life,  and 
all  the  ends  of  life  are  epitomized  in  that  single  man's  char- 
acter. He  is  a  function  of  the  whole  process  by  which  they  are 
working  together  to  organize  their  physiological,  and  eco- 
nomic, and  personal,  and  scientific,  and  aesthetic,  and  religious 
interests.  Make  a  cross-section  of  him,  and  we  find  we  have  in 
him  every  fiber  of  civilization.  In  weaving  the  web  of  the 
ages,  every  strand  of  influence  that  goes  out  from  man,  or 
returns  to  man,  sends  a  filament  through  this  mechanic.  In 
a  sense  we  may  say  of  him,  as  Longfellow  said  of  the  Ship 
of  State : 

Humanity  with  all  its  fears. 
With  all  its  hopes  of  future  years, 
Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate. 

Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  are  all  with  thee. 
Our   hearts,   our    hopes,    our   prayers,    our   tears, 
Our  faith,  triumphant  o'er  our  fears. 
Are  all  with  thee  —  are  all  with  thee. 

Tliat  is,  this  man,  typical  of  all  men,  carries  in  himself 
the  evidence  that  all  the  phases  of  human  association  are 
ceaselessly  working  together  in  a  process  which  binds  each 
man  to  every  man,  which  makes  each  man  both  a  finished 
product  of  one  stage  of  social  production  and  the  raw  material 
of  another.  Accordingly,  the  sociologists  confront  the  task  of 
making  out  the  different  groupings  of  persons,  and  of  detect- 
ing their  interrelations,  in  such  a  way  that  the  content  of  the 
whole  life-process  will  appear,  both  in  kind  and  in  proportion, 
in  the  interrelations  of  their  activities. 

As  we  have  urged  before,  an  adequate  conception  of  human 
association  as  a  process  involves  something  in  addition  to 
analysis  of  what  has  actually  taken  place,  or  what  is  occurring. 
It  extends  to  perception  of  what  is  coming  to  be  in  course  of 
this  occurring.  Here  we  must  leave  the  solid  ground  of  cer- 
tainty and  venture  into  the  dangerous  region  of  inference. 
Yet  no  knowledge  is  worth  having  unless  it  is  convertible  into 
forecast  of  the  future.    What  we  want  to  know  of  the  social 


522  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

process  first  of  all  is  whether  it  is  likely  to  continue  beyond 
us.  Are  there  indications  of  what  the  process  will  amount  to 
if  it  does  so  continue  ?  Do  we  get  any  light  from  the  process, 
so  far  as  it  has  gone,  about  the  elements  in  the  process  which 
are  best  worth  promoting?  Does  the  process  reveal  anything 
about  the  means  available  to  direct  and  develop  the  process? 
In  other  words,  do  we  discover  in  human  attainments  and 
achievements  details  and  tendencies  which  impress  us  as  good 
and  desirable  in  themselves?  Do  we  conclude  that  the  future 
human  process  must  be  a  tragedy  of  sequestrating  those  goods 
to  the  uses  of  a  few,  or  that  it  will  be  a  widening  epic  of  the 
advance  of  the  many  toward  the  same  attainments  and  achieve- 
ments and  enjoyments?  At  this  point  is  the  critical  position 
in  our  whole  attitude  toward  the  social  process.  Is  it  to  us 
a  process  of  the  advance  of  all  men  toward  all  the  goods  that 
seem  good  for  some  men,  or  is  it  a  perpetual  process  of  the 
preferment  of  some  at  the  cost  of  others?  Do  the  good  things 
that  men  discover,  and  think,  and  perform,  belong  forever  to 
select  men,  or  are  they  merely  samples  of  the  things  which  the 
continuance  of  the  social  process  will  procure  for  the  general 
typical  man? 

It  is  not  essential  to  an  exposition  of  the  concept  "  social 
process "  that  this  question  should  be  answered  here,  but  so 
much  must  be  compressed  into  this  outline  that  a  theorem  of 
which  no  demonstration  can  be  presented  may  be  ventured  gra- 
tuitously, viz. :  //  wc  arc  justified  in  drawing  any  general 
conclusions  zuhatever  from  human  experience  tJius  far,  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  the  social  process  tends  to  put  an  increasing 
proportion  of  individuals  in  possession  of  all  the  goods  ivhich 
have  been  discovered  by  the  experience  of  humanity  as  a 
zuhole,  and  that  all  social  programs  should  be  thought  out 
with  a  viezv  to  promotion  of  this  tendency. 

In  other  words,  the  social  process,  as  we  find  it  among  men 
thus  far,  l^ears  testimony  that  the  inclusive  aim  which  men 
should  set  up  for  themselves  ought  to  be  the  perfection  of 
social  co-operation,  to  the  end  that  the  lot  of  every  person  in 


THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  523 

the  world  may  be  to  share,  in  a  progressively  widening  pro- 
portion, in  all  the  developing  content  of  the  most  abundant 
life.  The  social  process  does  not  reach  its  limit  as  a  consump- 
tion of  men  for  the  production  of  things.  It  tends  to  become 
more  and  more  a  consumption  of  things  for  the  production 
of  men.  This  human  product  is  in  process  of  completion  in 
all  the  qualities  and  dimensions  of  life.  More  and  better  life 
by  more  and  better  people,  beyond  any  limit  of  time  or  quality 
that  our  minds  can  set,  is  the  indicated  content  of  the  social 
process. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

SOCIAL  STRUCTURE;   SOCIAL  FUNCTIONS;   SOCIAL  FORCES ; 
SOCIAL  ENDS;    SUBJECTIVE  ENVIRONMENT;    SOCIAL 
CONSCIOUSNESS;    THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  POINT 
OF  VIEW 

Ward,  "  Evolution  of  Social  Structure,"  American  Journal  of  Soci- 
ology, Vol.  X,  p.  589. 

ToNNiES,  "  The  Present  Problems  of  Social  Structure,"  ibid.,  p.  569. 

I.  Social  Structure.^  —  Several  of  the  concepts  in  the 
present  schedule  have  come  into  conscious  use  in  sociology 
rather  late.  They  have  been-  forced  upon  our  attention  as 
analysis  and  interpretation  have  become  more  exact.  They 
are  rudimentary  and  necessary,  from  the  logical  point  of  view ; 
but  it  took  the  sociologists  a  long  time  to  see  the  need  of  such 
categories. 

Under  the  present  title,  on  the  other  hand,  we  encounter 
a  concept  which  has  had  much  more  than  its  due  share  of  influ- 
ence upon  sociology  since  Comte,  and  it  would  be  easy  to 
show  that  it  has  implicitly  played  an  important  role,  though 
most  of  the  time  it  was  unexpressed  in  direct  terms,  through- 
out the  whole  range  of  thinking  about  human  actions. 
Although  we  speak  the  language  of  evolution,  the  notion  of 
social  structure  has  certainly  dominated  all  the  social  sciences 
during  the  past  fifty  years.  So  far  as  we  can  see,  it  is  a  con- 
cept which  we  must  always  use.  It  seems  probable,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  we  shall  reduce  the  ratio  of  its  prominence 
below  that  which  it  has  enjoyed  during  the  formative  period 
of  sociology. 

Every  activity  implies  a  formation  of  elements  by  means 

*  Parts  II  and  ITT,  are  chiefly  occupied  with  attempts  to  make  this  concept 
specific.  Cf.  also  Small  and  Vincent,  Introduction,  pp.  87-96  ;  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  II,  p.  311  ;  Vol.  IV,  p.  411  ;  Vol.  V,  pp.  276  and 
626-31. 


SOCIAL  STRUCTURE  525 

of  which  the  activity  takes  place.  In  general,  this  means  a 
structure  of  parts  concerned  in  the  activity.^ 

It  is  not  intended  that  the  term  "social  structure,"  as  here 
used,  shall  cover  any  questions  that  are  in  dispute  about  the 
sense  in  which  the  concept  is  applicable  to  society.  The  notion 
has  been  overworked,  abused,  distorted,  misrepresented,  and 
misunderstood.  Many  sociologists  have  accordingly  felt 
obliged  to  protest  against  the  notion  altogether;  or,  at  least, 
they  have  so  strongly  objected  to  certain  versions  of  the  notion 
that  they  have  virtually  argued  against  the  validity  of  the 
fundamental  category  itself.  At  the  same  time,  everyone  who 
has  attempted  to  interpret  men's  activities  has  been  obliged 
to  use  the  concept  in  some  generic  form.  The  essential  fact 
is  that,  when  men  act  together,  whether  in  pairs  or  in  multi- 
tudes, there  is  always  an  adjustment  of  some  sort  between 
them.  Thus  in  a  matriarchal  family  the  woman  has  a  certain 
conceded  prestige  and  influence,  with  reference  to  which  the 
man  and  the  children  are  subordinate.  In  the  patriarchal 
family  there  is  similar  subordination,  but  the  man  is  the  center 
of  power.  In  every  group  of  boys  or  girls  at  play  the  arrange- 
ment of  leader  and  led  is  sure  to  develop  in  some  degree  or 
other,  sooner  or  later.  In  a  gang  of  men  at  work  there  will 
always  be  a  gravitation  toward  definite  arrangement  of  boss 
and  bossed.  So  in  every  larger  and  more  developed  human 
activity.  The  adaptations  of  the  individuals  to  each  other 
may  be  entirely  fluid  and  flexible  and  transitory,  as  in  a  crowd 
accidentally  assembled  by  curiosity;  or  they  may  become  defi- 
nite, rigid,  and  relatively  permanent,  as  in  the  legal  institu- 
tions of  civilized  society.     Wherever  social  activities  occur, 

^  Thus  the  Century  Dictionary  has,  among  others,  the  following  definition 
of  the  term  :  "  In  the  widest  sense,  any  production  or  piece  of  work  arti- 
ficially built  up  or  composed  of  parts  joined  together  in  some  definite  manner  ; 

any    construction An    organic    form,    the    combination    of    parts    in    any 

natural    production ;     an    organization    of    parts    or    elements Mode    of 

building,  construction,  or  organization ;  arrangement  of  parts,  elements,  or 
constituents ;  form ;  make ;  .  .  .  .  used  of  both  natural  and  artificial  pro- 
ductions." 


526  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

however,  this  manner  of  adjustment  between  the  actors,  this 
structure  of  parts,  is  just  as  real  as  the  existence  of  the  parts 
themselves.  This  structure  into  which  persons  arrange  them- 
selves whenever  they  act  together,  is  both  effect  and  cause  of 
their  actions.  The  activities  cannot  be  fully  or  truly  known, 
therefore,  without  knowledge  of  the  social  structure  within 
which  and  by  means  of  which  they  take  place. 

It  has  come  about,  accordingly,  that  many  sociologists 
have  virtually  made  the  treatment  of  social  structures  the 
whole  of  sociology.  They  have^  moreover,  interpreted  social 
structure  in  such  a  dogmatic  way  that  progress  of  social 
knowledge  has  been  retarded  by  reaction  against  their  methods. 
In  refusing  to  accept  unfortunate  versions  of  social  structure, 
many  people  have  placed  themselves  in  an  attitude  of  antago- 
nism to  the  whole  conception  of  social  structure.  This  is  an 
impossible  war  between  words  and  realities.  The  latter  must 
prevail.  Men  act  in  and  through  correlations  with  each  other. 
This  is  the  essential  fact  which  the  concept  "  social  structure  " 
recognizes.  We  are  inevitably  forced  to  find  out  at  last  what 
manner  of  social  structure  is  concerned  in  any  given  portion 
of  human  experience  which  attracts  our  attention.  This  is 
as  true  of  a  district  school,  or  of  a  country  town,  or  of  a  local 
church,  as  it  is  of  China  or  the  "concert  of  the  powers." 
"  What  are  the  customary,  understood,  accepted,  and  expected 
modes  in  which  the  individuals  concerned  get  along  with  each 
other?"  This  is  one  of  the  first  questions  to  which  we  must 
find  an  answer,  if  we  are  attempting  to  understand  any  por- 
tion of  society. 

For  many  reasons,  the  most  available  help  in  reaching  a 
working  familiarity  with  the  concept  "  social  structure,"  as  it 
is  now  held  by  all  sociologists,  is  Spencer's  Principles  of  Soci- 
ology, Vol.  I,  Part  II.  "The  Inductions  of  Sociology."  As 
we  showed  in  Part  TI,  Spencer's  account  of  social  structure 
must  136  taken  with  many  grains  of  salt.  In  the  first  place, 
whether  Spencer  himself  was  perfectly  clear  in  his  own  mind 
about  the  matter  or  not,   the  biological   analogies  which   he 


SOCIAL  FUNCTIONS  527 

uses  so  liberally  are  to  be  taken  as  purely  illustrative,  good  so 
far  as  they  go,  but  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  literal  rela- 
tionships between  persons  which  they  are  employed  to  symbol- 
ize. People  who  use  biological  figures  most  liberally  in 
expressing  social  relations  are  most  emphatic  today  in  assert- 
ing that  they  use  those  forms  of  expression  merely  as  the  most 
convenient  rhetorical  device  for  making  social  relationships 
vivid.  Society  is  not  a  big  animal.  There  is  no  social  stomach 
or  brain  or  heart  or  eye  or  spinal  cord.  The  digestive  process 
for  society  is  performed  by  the  digestive  organs  of  the  indi- 
viduals who  compose  society;  the  thinking  of  society  is  done 
in  the  minds  of  the  individual  members  of  society;  and  so 
on.  Yet  all  the  individuals  in  a  society  are,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  association.  The  feeding,  and  thinking,  and  other  pri- 
marily individual  activities  which  they  perform,  all  have  a 
positive  or  negative  effect  on  the  maintenance  and  activities  of 
the  association.  It  comes  about,  therefore,  that  we  are  prac- 
tically justified  in  speaking  as  though  society  itself  had  these 
parts  or  organs  which  are  literally  located  in  individuals  only. 
This  is  more  evident  if  we  combine  with  further  discussion  of 
the  present  subject  the  closely  related  subject  of  the  next 
section. 

2.  Social  Functions.^ — Men  in  association  have  com- 
mon work  to  do.  Because  they  have  this  common  work  to 
do  they  associate,  and  because  they  associate  they  find  more 
occasions  for  common  work.  Everybody  has  to  eat;  but, 
after  people  have  associated  a  little  while,  they  find  that  some 
of  their  number  are  not  producing  food.  They  are  doing  other 
things,  like  singing  patriotic  songs,  or  decorating  weapons, 
or  performing  religious  rites.  Their  activities  would  not  feed 
them  if  the  association  did  not  exist.  In  fact,  however,  the 
interests  of  the  members  of  the  association  have  become  so 
specialized  that  there  is  a  demand  for  these  activities  which 

'  Vide  Small  and  Vincent,  Introduction,  Book  IV,  "  Social  Psychology  and 
Pathology,"  and  Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology,  Book  II,  chap.  5,  "  Social 
Functions." 


528  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

are  only  indirectly  connected  with  the  food-producing  activi- 
ties. We  may  express  this  fact  in  terms  of  social  function  in 
this  way:  Some  persons  become  set  apart  in  the  course  of 
the  social  process  for  the  social  function  of  supplying  food; 
other  persons  are  gradually  permitted  or  required  by  the  inter- 
ests of  all  to  perform  other  functions  less  essential  to  the  sus- 
taining of  life  than  the  function  of  food-getting.  Each  of 
these  kinds  of  ivork  involves  some  detail  of  social  structure, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  all  social  structures  are  assortments 
of  persons  incidental  to  the  supply  of  incessant  general  ivants, 
i.  e.,  the  performance  of  social  functions. 

There  is  nothing  mystical  or  arbitrary  about  these  two  con- 
cepts, social  structure  and  social  function,  as  they  are  held  by 
all  sociologists.  They  are  merely  the  most  convenient  sym- 
bols that  we  can  adopt  for  literal  facts  in  human  association. 
On  the  one  hand,  human  life  is  a  vast  complex  of  work  inter- 
changed between  all  and  each.  In  brief,  men  in  association 
carry  on  a  system  of  functions  for  each  and  all.  To  do  this 
the  associates  arrange  themselves  in  certain  more  or  less  per- 
manent adjustments  to  each  other.  This  is  the  fact  indicated 
by  the  term  "  social  structure."  Wherever  there  is  society 
there  is  social  function  and  social  structure.  The  closer  we 
get  to  the  real  facts  of  society,  the  more  specifically  must  we 
be  able  to  answer  the  questions :  Precisely  what  are  the  func- 
tions which  the  society  is  carrying  on?  and,  Precisely  what 
structure  has  the  society  adopted  as  its  equipment  for  per- 
forming the  functions? 

It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  every  person  who  is 
trying  to  exert  an  influence  of  any  sort  upon  other  people, 
whether  for  good  or  evil,  is  concerned  to  know,  first,  just  what 
objects  in  life  those  people  are  pursuing,  and,  second,  just 
what  social  adjustments  they  have  adopted  in  pursuit  of  the 
objects.  As  we  shall  see  presently,  these  two  aspects  of  the 
situation  are  not  only  important  in  themselves,  but  they  power- 
fully affect  each  other.  It  follows  that  ability  to  comprehend 
the  particular  society  with  which  one  is  dealing,  in  terms  of 


SOCIAL  FUNCTIONS  529 

social  structure  and  social  function,  is  a  part  of  the  necessary 
outfit  of  both  theoretical  and  practical  sociologists. 

We  may  return  to  Spencer  for  our  illustrations  of  the 
ways  in  which  these  conceptions  have  been  developed  and 
applied.  In  the  simplest  terms,  the  sociologists  long  ago  dis- 
covered that  they  must  learn  how  to  find  out  what  communi- 
ties are  really  doing  and  how  they  are  doing  it.  That  is,  we 
must  be  able  to  go  behind  the  visible  and  the  conventional,  and 
discover  the  real  aims  and  methods  which  the  visible  and  the 
conventional  often  conceal.  For  example,  Spencer  divides 
social  institutions,  for  certain  purposes,  into,  first,  domestic 
institutions;  second,  ceremonial  institutions;  third,  political 
institutions;  fourth,  ecclesiastical  institutions;  fifth,  profes- 
sional institutions;  sixth,  industrial  institutions.'*  Now,  every 
society,  except  the  most  primitive,  and  quite  minute  portions 
of  every  society,  may  have  some  parts  of  each  of  these  sorts 
of  institution.  It  is  necessary  to  know  them  by  their  general 
traits  and  to  know  them  in  particular.  In  every  age  each  of 
them  has  done  much  that  does  not  appear  on  the  surface.  The 
family,  for  instance,  is  not  a  "domestic"  institution  alone. 
It  has  always  been,  more  or  less,  each  of  the  other  kinds  of 
institution  —  ceremonial,  politic^al,  ecclesiastical,  professional, 
industrial.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  each  of  the  other  groups 
of  institutions.  The  paterfamilias,  the  priest,  the  king,  the 
artist,  the  farmer,  the  blacksmith-,  do  not  have  one  and  the 
same  meaning  in  all  times  and  places.  In  one  society  the 
farmer  may  be  little  more  than  a  part  of  the  clod  he  tills,  while 
in  another  he  may  be  also  a  maker  of  political  constitutions 
and  a  prophet  of  new  civilizations.  The  priest  may  be,  at  one 
and  the  same  time,  or  at  different  times,  both  a  minister  of 
religion  and  a  pander  to  political  and  personal  corruption. 
The  king  may  be  either  a  creator  and  developer  of  the  State, 
or  a  parasite  sapping  the  material  and  moral  power  of  his 
people.  Institutions  are  but  the  shell  of  social  activities. 
Analyses  of  them  simply  as  institutions  are  necessary;    but 

*  Cf.  p.  114. 


530  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

that  sort  of  analysis  is  merely  a  step  toward  more  real  analy- 
sis of  the  place  which  they  actually  occupy  in  working  social 
arrangements,  and  of  the  social  content  which  their  operation 
actually  secures. 

While  Spencer's  account  of  social  structure  and  functions 
is  not  to  be  recommended  as  the  final  form  which  those  con- 
cepts should  take  in  our  minds,  it  is  historically  and  peda- 
gogically  expedient  to  approach  more  literal  renderings  of 
actual  social  structure  and  function  through  Spencer's  version. 
All  the  sociologists  have  obtained  their  present  insight  by 
means  of  preliminary  analyses  more  or  less  like  Spencer's. 
It  is  doubtful  if  anyone  will  reach  the  limits  of  our  present 
perceptions  of  social  relations  without  making  some  use  of 
the  Spencerian  mode  of  approach.  This  does  not  mean  that 
there  is  any  logical  relation  of  antecedent  and  consequent,  of 
premise  and  conclusion,  between  the  method  of  biological 
analogy  and  literal  interpretation  of  social  structures  and 
functions.  It  simply  means  that,  as  a  practical  matter,  there 
is  no  way  of  making  the  intimacy  and  complexity  and  inter- 
dependence of  social  structural  and  functional  relations  so 
vivid  as  by  making  biological  structures  and  functions  illus- 
trate them.  This  latter  device,  however,  is  not  the  social 
interpretation  itself.  It  is  merely  a  convenience  tributary  to 
the  end  of  social  interpretation.  If  it  does  not  serve  that  end 
in  any  case,  it  is  to  be  brushed  aside  accordingly. 

It  would  occupy  more  space  than  is  available  to  pursue 
the  discussion  of  social  structure  and  function  into  particu- 
lars, and  it  is  unnecessary  after  the  discussion  in  Parts  II  and 
III.  We  might  reconsider  Spencer's  primary  classification  of 
social  structure  into  the  sustaining  system,  the  distributing  sys- 
tem, and  the  regulating  system.  We  might  show  that  the 
functions  of  production,  transfer,  and  regulation  go  on,  in 
some  manner  or  other,  in  every  group,  from  the  parts  of  the 
animal  body  considered  as  a  group,  to  the  whole  of  the  human 
race.     We  might  show  how  the  work  performed   by  these 


SOCIAL  FUNCTIONS  531 

great  structural  or  functional  systems^  varies  indefinitely  in 
content  and  proportions,  from  time  to  time  and  from  place 
to  place,  and  that  the  same  essential  functions  go  on  in  social 
structures  so  different  that  only  trained  insight  can  discover 
the  identity  in  the  difference.  We  might  show  that  much 
experience  in  analyzing  social  situations,  so  as  to  demonstrate 
the  actual  structure  and  functions  concerned,  is  necessary  to 
form  mature  and  reliable  sociological  judgment.  We  might 
go  through  a  critical  analysis  of  the  structure  and  functions 
of  some  selected  society,  as  a  sample  of  the  work  which  every 
sociologist  must  be  prepared  to  undertake  upon  the  situation 
with  which  he  has  especially  to  deal.  In  a  conspectus  of  this 
sort,  however,  all  this  must  be  omitted. 

One  further  consideration,  hinted  at  above,  may  be  added. 
One  of  the  most  frequent  problems  encountered  in  the  prac- 
tical affairs  of  social  life  is,  in  most  general  terms,  a  problem 
of  the  relations  between  social  structure  and  function.  It  is  a 
universal  principle  that  function  develops  structure,  and  that 
structure  limits  function.  For  example,  need  of  defense 
against  men  develops  the  military  or  police  structures;  need 
of  defense  against  fire  develops  the  fire  department;  per 
contra,  the  kind  of  military,  police,  or  fire  department  which 
a  community  possesses  determines  the  sort  of  work  which  will 
be  done  in  their  lines,  and  indirectly  the  sort  of  work  which 
other  parts  of  the  society  can  perform  in  discharging  other 
functions. 

Now  it  is  a  further  general  fact  that  social  structures, 
although  differentiated  to  perform  functions,  tend  to  assert 
themselves,  even  when  the  function  is  no  longer  necessary,  or 
when  the  structure  is  no  longer  adequate  to  the  function.  The 
parts  of  social  structures  are  persons.  Selfish  interests  are 
closer  than  social  interests.  The  persons  who  compose  a  social 
structure  get  their  living  or  their  repute  by  doing  the  work 
of  that  structure,  or  by  perpetuating  the  assumption  that  they 

'  They  are  the  one  or  the  other  according  as  we  think  of  them  from  the 
side  of  mechanism  or  from  the  side  of  the  work  that  they  do. 


532  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

do  the  work.  To  the  persons  in  this  situation  the  structure  is 
something  desirable  in  itself,  because  from  it  their  livelihood 
and  their  social  prestige  are  derived.  Every  revolution  in 
history  has  accordingly  been,  wholly  or  in  part,  a  throwing 
away  of  some  social  structure  which  once  performed  a  needed 
function;  which  had  ceased  to  do  the  work;  which  useless 
people  nevertheless  wanted  to  perpetuate,  because  it  was  a 
good  thing  for  themselves;  which  the  rest  of  society  wanted 
to  abolish,  because  it  stood  in  the  way  of  their  personal 
interests.^ 

Accordingly,  one  of  the  most  radical  inquiries  suggested 
by  any  strained  social  situation,  whether  it  is  merely  the  case 
of  a  local  church  which  fails  to  prosper,  or  the  case  of  a 
national  government  against  which  the  people  revolt,  or  any- 
thing intermediate  between  these  extremes,  is :  What  social 
structure  is  involved?  What  functions  are  its  ostensible 
charge?  Are  the  functions  performed?  What  changes  of 
structure  would  promote  the  performance  of  the  functions? 
What  interests  insist  upon  the  permanence  of  the  structure  at 
the  expense  of  the  functions? 

3.  Social  Forces. —  No  treatment  of  this  subject  is  so 
full  and  clear  as  that  of  Ward.'^  What  we  have  said  and  sug- 
gested in  the  chapter  on  interests  should,  however,  be  recalled 
as  the  basis  for  analysis  of  the  social  forces. 

We  must  guard  at  the  outset  against  an  illusion  that  has 
exerted  a  confusing  influence  at  this  point.  There  are  no 
social  forces  which  are  not  at  the  same  time  forces  lodged  in 
individuals,  deriving  their  energy  from  individuals,  and  oper- 
ating in  and  through  individuals.  There  are  no  social  forces 
that  lurk  in  the  containing  ether,  and  affect  persons  without 
the  agency  of  other  persons.  There  are,  to  be  sure,  all  the 
physical    conditions   of   which    we   have    spoken    above,    that 

'  Cf.  above,  pp.  232-34. 

"'Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  I,  pp.  468-82;  The  Psychic  Factors  of  Civiliza- 
tion, and  Pure  Sociology,  pp.  256  f.,  ct  passim  .  (f.  Ross,  Foundations  of 
Sociology,  chaps.  7  and  8. 


SOCIAL  I'ORCES  533 

affect  persons  just  as  they  affect  all  other  forms  of  matter.  So 
far,  these  are  not  social  forces  at  all.  They  do  not  get  to 
be  social  forces  until  they  get  into  persons,  and  in  these  per- 
sons take  the  form  of  feelings  which  impel  them  to  react 
upon  other  persons.  Persons  are  thus  transmuters  of  physi- 
cal forces  into  social  forces;  but  all  properly  designated  social 
forces  are  essentially  personal.  They  are  within  some  persons, 
and  stimulate  them  to  act  upon  other  persons;  or  they  are  in 
other  persons,  and  exert  themselves  as  external  stimuli  upon 
otherwise  inert  persons.  In  either  case  social  forces  are  per- 
sonal influences  passing  from  person  to  person,  and  producing 
activities  that  give  content  to  the  association. 

The  conception  of  social  forces  was  never  challenged  so 
long  as  it  was  merely  an  everyday  commonplace.  When  it 
passed  into  technical  forms  of  expression,  doubts  began  to 
be  urged.  If  anyone  in  the  United  States  had  questioned  the 
existence  of  Mrs.  Grundy  fifty  years  ago,  he  would  have  been 
pitied  and  ignored  as  a  harmless  "natural."  Social  forces  in 
the  form  of  gossip,  and  personified  in  Mrs.  Grundy,  were 
real  to  everybody.  But  the  particular  species  of  social  forces 
which  Mrs.  Grundy  represented  were  neither  more  nor  less 
real  than  the  other  social  forces  which  had  no  name  in  folk- 
lore. Persons  incessantly  influence  persons.  The  modes  of 
this  influence  are  indescribably  varied.  They  are  conscious 
and  unconscious,  accidental  and  momentary,  or  deliberate  and 
persistent;  they  are  conventional  and  continuous,  the  result 
of  individual  habit,  or  of  customs  crystallized  into  national 
or  racial  institutions. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  there  could  be  any  reality, 
or  at  least  any  significance,  in  the  fact  which  we  have  named 
"  the  spiritual  environment,"  if  that  environment  did  not  have 
means  of  affecting  persons.  The  ways  in  which  the  spiritual 
environment  comes  to  be  an  environment  at  all  in  effect  are 
simply  the  modes  of  action  followed  by  the  social  forces.  Yet 
our  analysis  of  the  social  forces  must  not  be  treated  as  though 
it  were  in  any  sense  a  deduction  from  the  idea  of  a  spiritual 


534  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

environment.  The  reverse  is  the  case.  We  do  not  get  the 
idea  of  a  spiritual  environment  until  we  have  found  that  there 
are  many  distinct  social  forces;  and  then  it  becomes  con- 
venient for  some  purposes  to  mass  them  in  one  conception,  to 
which  we  give  the  name  "  spiritual  environment,"  or  some 
equivalent.  The  simple  fact  which  the  concept  "  social  forces  " 
stands  for  is  that  every  individual  acts  and  is  acted  upon  in 
countless  ways  by  the  other  persons  with  whom  he  associates. 
These  modes  of  action  and  reaction  between  persons  may  be 
classified,  and  the  more  obvious  and  recurrent  among  them 
may  be  enumerated.  More  than  this,  the  action  of  these  social 
forces  may  be  observed,  and  the  results  of  observation  may  be 
organized  into  social  laws.  Indeed,  there  would  be  only  two 
alternatives,  if  we  did  not  discover  the  presence  and  action 
of  social  forces.  On  the  one  hand,  social  science  would  at 
most  be  a  subdivision  of  natural  science;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  remaining  alternative  would  be  the  impossibility  of  social 
science  altogether. 

But  social  forces  are  just  as  distinctly  discernible  as  chemi- 
cal forces.  The  fact  that  we  are  not  familiar  with  them  no 
more  makes  against  their  existence  and  their  importance  than 
general  ignorance  of  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  takes  that 
phenomenon  out  of  the  physical  world.  They  are  not  only  the 
atmosphere,  but  they  are  a  very  large  part  of  the  moral  world 
in  general.  If  we  could  compose  a  complete  account  of  the 
social  forces,  we  should  at  the  same  time  have  completed, 
from  one  point  of  attention  at  least,  a  science  of  everything 
involved  in  human  society. 

As  suggested  alx)ve,  a  preface  to  Ward's  analysis  of  the 
social  forces  should  be  found  in  antecedent  analysis  of  inter- 
ests. As  Ward  correctly  observes :  "  All  beings  which  can  be 
said  to  perform  actions  do  so  in  obedience  to  those  mental  states 

which    are   denc^minated    desires We    will,    therefore, 

rest  content  to  assume  that  desire  is  the  essential  basis  of  all 
action,  and  hence  the  true  force  in  the  sentient  world."  ^     But 

'American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  I,  p.  468. 


SOCIAL  FORCES  535 

we  have  gone  back  a  step  beyond  the  desires,  and  have  found 
it  necessary  to  assume  the  existence  of  underlying  interests. 
These  have  to  desires  very  nearly  the  relation  of  substance 
to  attribute,  or,  in  a  different  figure,  of  genus  to  species.  Our 
interests  may  be  beyond  or  beneath  our  ken;  our  desires  are 
strong  and  clear.  I  may  not  be  conscious  of  my  health  inter- 
ests in  any  deep  sense,  but  the  desires  that  my  appetites  assert 
are  specific  and  concrete  and  real.  The  implicit  interests,  of 
which  we  may  be  very  imperfectly  aware,  move  us  to  desires 
which  may  correspond  well  or  ill  with  the  real  content  of  the 
interests.  At  all  events,  it  is  these  desires  which  make  up  the 
active  social  forces,  whether  they  are  more  or  less  harmonious 
with  the  interests  from  which  they  spring.  The  desires  that 
the  persons  associating  actually  feel  are  practically  the  ele- 
mental forces  with  which  we  have  to  reckon.  They  are  just 
as  real  as  the  properties  of  matter.  They  have  their  ratios 
of  energy,  just  as  certainly  as  though  they  were  physical 
forces.  They  have  their  peculiar  modes  of  action,  which  may 
be  formulated  as  distinctly  as  the  various  modes  of  chemical 
action. 

The  only  scientific  doubt  which  is  admissible  about  the 
social  forces  concerns  the  division  of  labor  in  studying  them. 
If  the  social  forces  are  human  desires,  is  not  the  study  of 
them  psychology,  rather  than  sociology?  We  may  answer 
both  "  yes  "  and  "  no."  In  the  sense  that  both  psychology  and 
sociology  either  begin  or  end  in  each  other,  the  study  of  the 
social  forces  belongs  to  psychology.  In  the  sense  that  either 
psychology  or  sociology  can  be  supposed  to  treat  a  whole  situa- 
tion, if  its  distinctive  point  of  view  is  held  apart  from  the 
other  point  of  view,  neither  psychology  nor  sociology  can  be 
credited  with  sole  responsibility  for  interpretation  of  the  social 
forces.  The  emphasis  of  psychology  is  upon  discrimination 
of  the  mental  activities  (in  this  case  the  desires)  and  the 
mechanism  of  their  action.  The  emphasis  of  sociology  is  upon 
the  social  stimuli  of  the  desires,  upon  the  various  content  which 
they  carry  in  different  situations,   and  upon  their  operation 


536  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

within  associations  of  persons.  The  relations  of  psychology 
and  sociology  to  knowledge  of  the  social  forces  are  conse- 
quently complementary,  not  competitive. 

Ward's   briefer   classification   of   the   social    forces   is   as 
follows :  ^ 

Preservative    \  Positive,  gustatory  (seeking  pleasure) 
forces  I  Negative,  protective  (avoiding  pain) 

P         ^      ■      {  Direct  —  the  sexual  and  amative  desires 
epro   "C '^^  ^  jntjirect  —  parental   and  consanguineal   affec- 


.5  « 

c  o 

lA  O 

W 


I 


J^  o      .(Esthetic  forces 
4>  ^  -(  Emotional  (moral)  forces 
o  -2       Intellectual  forces 
^■z    [ 

Whether  we  assume  or  not  that  Ward  has  found  the  final 
classification  of  the  social  forces,  his  analysis  is  a  point  of 
departure  which  affords  the  readiest  approach  to  the  subject. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  enlarge  upon  the  importance  of 
the  concept  "  social  forces,"  because  the  argument  was  vir- 
tually foreshadowed  in  our  discussion  of  interests.  Every 
desire  that  any  man  harbors  is  a  force  making  or  marring, 
strengthening  or  weakening,  the  structure  and  functions  of 
the  society  of  which  he  is  a  part.  What  the  human  desires  are, 
what  their  relations  are  to  each  other,  what  their  peculiar 
modifications  are  under  different  circumstances —  these  are 
questions  of  detail  which  must  be  answered  in  general  by  social 
psychology,  and  in  particular  by  specific  analysis  of  each  social 
situation.  The  one  consideration  to  be  urged  at  this  point  is 
that  the  concept  "social  forces"  has  a  real  content.  It  repre- 
sents reality.  There  are  social  forces.  They  are  the  desires  of 
persons.  They  range  in  energy  from  the  vagrant  whim  that 
makes  the  individual  a  temporary  discomfort  to  his  group,  to 
the  inbred  feelings  that  whole  races  share.  It  is  with  these 
subtle  forces  that  social  arrangements  and  the  theories  of 
social  arrangements  have  to  deal. 

'Dynamic  Sociology,  zd    ed.,  p.  472. 


SOCIAL  ENDS  537 

4.  Social  Ends. —  To  suggest  the  notion  of  "ends"  is  to 
invite  metaphysical  argument.  Our  philosophical  traditions 
incline  us  to  speculation  about  ends  as  they  exist  in  the  absolute 
mind;  ends  proposed  at  the  beginning  of  things;  ends  to 
which  all  events  within  our  knowledge  are  tributary,  whether 
we  discover  it  or  not;  ends  toward  which  the  whole  creation 
moves,  whether  men  consent  or  not.  If  it  were  practicable  to 
enter  into  greater  detail  at  this  point,  we  might  easily  show  that 
what  we  have  said  about  the  unconscious  phase  of  human  inter- 
ests, as  contrasted  with  specific  desires,  lends  itself  to  a  theory 
of  ends  that  are  not  immediate  and  visible,  but  many  steps 
removed,  and  so  not  consciously  proposed  by  all  or  many  of  the 
members  of  society.  For  instance,  to  take  the  classic  American 
illustration,  the  colonists  in  the  seventh  decade  of  the  eighteenth 
century  wanted  "  redress  of  grievances "  from  the  mother- 
country.  That  meant  certain  specific  things,  which  they 
plainly  stated.  To  get  redress  of  grievances,  they  adopted  a 
series  of  concerted  measures  —  committees  of  correspondence, 
continental  congresses,  non-intercourse  agreements,  insurrec- 
tion. But  these  steps  did  not  avail.  To  get  the  specific  things 
that  all  wanted,  it  became  necessary  to  strike  for  another  thing, 
independence,  which,  in  the  beginning  at  least,  none  wanted. 
Having  obtained  independence,  it  soon  became  apparent  that 
another  thing,  which  few  wanted,  was  the  only  alternative  with 
loss  of  what  had  been  gained.  Accordingly,  the  colonies 
founded  that  other  thing,  nationality.  Now,  there  is  a  use  of 
the  conception  of  ends,  in  which  independence  and  nationality 
may  be  said  to  have  been  the  "  ends  "  of  American  activities 
from  the  beginning.  That  is,  they  were  consummations  which 
the  logic  of  events  must  bring  to  pass,  whether  any  individual 
could  foresee  them  or  not.  In  this  sense  every  stage  of  develop- 
ment through  which  men  and  nations  pass  in  reaching  more 
complete  life  is  an  "  end  "  of  all  previous  stages,  and  human 
experience  is  a  scale  of  means  and  ends,  regardless  of  men's 
thoughts  about  the  meaning  of  their  acts.  This  is  the  sense  in 
which  we  think  of  all  life  as  being  a  preparation  for  some 


538  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

undefined  end —  "that  far-off  divine  event  toward  which  the 
whole  creation  moves." 

The  conception  of  ends  thus  indicated  has  a  place  in  social 
philosophy,  but  our  present  business  is  with  a  much  more 
restricted  concept.  In  a  word,  human  associations  always 
have  reasons  for  existence  as  associations,  and  those  reasons 
are  conscious  ends  for  the  association,  in  a  way  which  differs 
somewhat  from  that  in  which  they  are  ends  for  the  individuals 
in  the  association. 

Take,  for  example,  the  family,  either  primitive  or  modern. 
From  a  variety  of  motives  a  man  and  a  woman  unite  to  form  a 
family.  They  thus  secure  certain  reciprocal  services.  They 
assure  to  themselves  certain  comforts,  conveniences,  safe- 
guards, dignities,  which  unattached  persons  lack.  To  each 
of  these  persons  individually  independence  is  a  desired  end. 
These  other  goods  are  also  desired,  and  for  the  sake  of  them 
the  individuals  exchange  a  certain  kind  of  independence  for 
that  kind  of  interdependence  which  the  family  relationship 
involves.  That  very  interdependence  now  becomes  an  end  for 
the  persons  united  in  the  family.  The  continued  existence  of 
the  family  is  an  end  in  itself.  Both  man  and  woman  may 
shortly  become  aware  that  this  end,  which  is  decisive  for  them 
as  a  family,  comes  into  sharp  collision  with  ends  that  are  dear 
to  them  as  individuals.  Each  says  in  his  heart :  "  I  would  like 
to  do  so  and  so ;  "  but  each  is  restrained  by  the  thought :  "  That 
would  break  up  the  family."  Whether  the  conflict  between 
the  individual  ends  and  the  family  ends  becomes  sharp  enough 
to  be  thus  realized  by  the  meml)ers  of  the  family,  or  not,  it  is 
always  there  in  principle.  Each  society,  large  or  small,  has 
ends  which  may  have  every  degree  of  harmonious  or  inhar- 
monious relation  with  the  interests  and  desires  of  the  individual 
members. 

For  our  present  purposes  it  is  not  worth  while  to  dwell 
upon  the  relation  of  social  ends  to  individual  ends.  The  present 
proposition  is  that  social  ends  exist.  Societies  exist  for  pur- 
poses that  are  distinctive.     Accordingly,  the  first  end  of  every 


SOCIAL  ENDS  539 

society,  as  of  every  individual,  is  self-preservation.^'^  Whether 
it  is  one  of  the  most  permanent  species  of  association,  like  the 
family  or  the  State,  or  an  accidental  and  unimportant  associa- 
tion, like  a  bicycle  club  or  a  reading  circle,  every  human  society 
has  its  peculiar  degree  of  tenacity  of  life.  The  end  of  per- 
petuating its  existence  asserts  itself  with  corresponding  force 
against  the  reactions  of  its  individual  members,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  against  collisions  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  on  the 
other. 

This  fact  of  social  ends,  more  or  less  at  variance  with  the 
ends  that  the  individuals  who  compose  the  society  might,  could, 
would^  or  should  pursue  if  they  were  outside  of  the  society,  is 
another  of  those  cardinal  realities  in  which  we  find  clues  to  the 
mysteries  of  human  experience.  From  the  savage  who  is 
merely  a  wolf  in  the  human  pack,  to  the  court  circle  of  London, 
or  Berlin,  or  Vienna,  or  the  Vatican,  every  individual  is  carried 
along,  partly  by  his  own  desires,  partly  in  spite  of  them,  in  the 
current  of  the  social  ends  pursued  by  the  society  to  which  he 
belongs.  All  human  experience  is  thus  not  merely  a  fabric  of 
personal  desires,  but  those  personal  desires  operate  in  a  very 
large  measure  impersonally.  That  is,  the  desires  get  organized 
into  institutions,  and  those  institutions  then  in  turn  make 
requisitions  upon  persons,  just  as  though  the  institutions 
actually  had  an  existence  of  themselves,  outside  of  and  above 
the  desires  of  the  persons  who  make  institutions.  We  have 
just  seen  this  in  the  case  of  the  family.  As  members  of  the 
family,  the  man  and  the  woman  composing  it  enforce  reciprocal 
demands  which  may  sharply  antagonize  each.  These  institu- 
tionalized demands  become  the  ends  which  associations  of  per- 
sons pursue.  The  acts  which  individuals  perform  would  be 
unaccountable  if  we  did  not  know  the  social  ends  that  dominate 
individual  ends.  Why  do  I  obey  the  laws?  Why  do  I  per- 
form jury  service?  Why  do  I  pay  taxes?  Why  do  I  observe 
certain    conventional    proprieties?       My    strictly    individual 

*"  The  implications  of  this  fact  have  been  dwelt  upon  at  some  length  espe- 
cially in  chaps.    15-22. 


540  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

preferences  may  take  up  arms  against  each  of  these  every  time 
it  demands  my  conformity.  To  remain  in  society  at  all,  or  to 
remain  in  good  standing  in  society,  ^vhich  may  seem  to  me 
more  important,  I  must  subordinate  some  of  my  individual 
ends  to  the  social  ends. 

Later  chapters  of  sociology  have  to  consider  a  great  num- 
ber of  relations  which  depend  upon  the  fact  here  involved; 
e.  g.,  when  are  social  ends  and  when  are  individual  ends  pro- 
gressive, or  retrogressive?  Our  present  object  is  merely  to 
give  the  fact  of  social  ends  its  proportionate  emphasis. 

Since  social  ends  are  organizations  of  the  desires  of  per- 
sons, since  they  are  the  demands  enforced  by  common  elements 
in  the  desires  of  numbers  of  persons  increasing  with  the  size 
of  the  society,  the  presumption  is  strong  that  the  social  ends 
which  control  at  any  time  correspond  more  closely  with  the 
real  interests  of  the  persons  in  the  association  than  their  indi- 
vidual desires.  That  this  has  been  the  case,  in  the  aggregate, 
more  than  the  contrary,  is  evident  if  we  believe  that,  on  the 
whole,  real  human  interests  have  been  promoted  by  the  course 
of  events  thus  far  in  history.  It  would  be  a  generalization 
much  too  sweeping,  however,  if  we  should  say  that  social  ends 
are  an  expression  of  genuine  human  interests,  while  individual 
ends  express  merely  apparent  or  approximate  interests.  The 
contrary  is  often  the  case.  It  is  more  nearly  true  to  say  that 
the  social  ends  are  more  likely  to  express  the  demands  of 
essential  interests  when  they  emphasize  functional  wants,  and 
less  likely  to  correspond  with  these  interests  when  they  con- 
verge upon  social  structure. 

Without  attempting  to  reach  an  equation  of  the  social  and 
the  individual  ends,  we  may  further  illustrate  the  existence  of 
the  former  by  use  of  a  diagram.^ ^ 

The  interests  implicit  in  every  individual  arc  scheduled  in 
the  horizontal  line  at  the  bottom  of  the  diagram.  Each  of 
these  interests  may  assert  itself  in  desires  that  form  a  rising 
scale,  through  innumerable  gradations.     The  diagram  merely 

"  Cf.  p.  542. 


SOCIAL  ENDS  541 

indicates  these  variations  of  the  desires  within  the  six  interest- 
realms  represented  by  the  capital  letters  A-F,  by  the  small 
letters  a-f,  with  exponents  from  i  to  xiv. 

The  left-hand  column  of  the  diagram  follows  Ratzenhofer. 
It  means  that  there  is  a  visible  scale  of  progress  in  human 
society  at  large.^^  In  brief,  the  proposition  is  that  men  arrange 
themselves  from  the  beginning  in  groups,  which  are  at  first 
small  and  exclusive.  These  groups  grow  larger,  both  by 
growth  from  within  and  by  various  sorts  of  assimilations  and 
mergings.  Starting  at  the  bottom  of  the  column,  there  are  two 
distinguishable  lines  of  development :  first,  that  in  which 
conflict  between  groups  is  the  cardinal  activity ;  second,  that  in 
which  reciprocal  interests  of  groups  are  recognized.  These 
two  lines  of  development  are  not  absolutely  separable  in  time. 
In  general,  the  former  is  first  in  historical  order;  but,  after  a 
certain  stage  of  progress,  the  latter  development  begins  to 
overlap  the  former. 

Human  groups,  then,  begin  early  to  be  conscious  of  distinct 
group-ends.  The  lowest  in  the  scale  is  that  of  the  horde  and 
then  presently  of  the  race.  Each  may  be  hard  pressed  in  the 
struggle  for  food.  It  has,  consequently,  an  intense  group- 
desire  to  keep  the  group  intact,  as  the  means  of  defending  the 
sources  of  food ;  and,  for  the  same  reason,  to  weaken  and  beat 
off  or  destroy  all  rival  hordes  or  races. 

The  ends  which  the  groups  pursue,  as  they  develop  from 
the  horde,  vary  in  two  ways,  which  we  may  call  extension  and 
content.  The  former  is  represented  somewhat  ideally  by  the 
rising  scale  in  the  left-hand  column.  The  latter  may  be  repre- 
sented by  combinations  of  terms  in  the  other  columns. 

We  may  find  a  group  at  Stage  III  of  conflict-development, 
for  instance.  Suppose  we  take  Sparta  or  Athens  as  our  illus- 
tration. The  society  leads  a  very  close  and  exclusive  life.  Its 
purposes  are  bounded  by  its  own  political  confines.     People 

"Vide  chap.  17,  p.  216.  In  the  diagram  we  allow  the  two  progress  series 
to  stand  as  though  Ratzenhofer  intended  to  have  them  understood  as  con- 
secutive.    The  explanation  is  in  the  passage  cited. 


542 


GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 


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SOCIAL  ENDS  543 

beyond  these  boundaries  are  slightly  esteemed.  When  accident 
brings  the  Spartans  or  Athenians  into  intercourse  with  outside 
individuals  or  States,  the  standard  of  conduct  toward  them  is 
distinctly  less  sympathetic  and  humane  than  the  public  and 
private  standards  which  the  State  or  the  population  shows  in 
domestic  intercourse.  Thus  the  social  end,  as  such,  is  restricted 
in  its  extent.  Meanwhile,  in  Athens,  at  the  age  of  Pericles, 
many  individuals  have  desires  which  we  might  represent  as 
follows : 

Desire  ^a^  +  b^'  +  c^  +  d  "'  +  6 '''^  +  f™ 

Accordingly,  the  social  end  of  Athens,  compounded  of 
many  individual  desires,  might  be  symbolized,  as  to  its  content, 
in  this  way : 

Social  end  =  a''"+  b'"  +  c"  +  d^'"  +  0""+  f'^ 
I.  e.,  every  society  whatsoever  will  have,  in  addition  to  its 
primary  social  end  of  self-existence,  a  qualitative  end,  which  is 
the  algebraic  sum,  so  to  speak,  or,  better,  a  chemical  compound, 
of  the  desires  cherished  by  its  individual  members  within  the 
realm  of  the  several  great  interests. 

Having  thus  pointed  out  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  "  social 
ends "  in  general,  and  having  indicated  that  every  human 
association,  however  minute,  has  its  peculiar  social  ends,  sub- 
ordinate, as  the  members  and  the  association  itself  may  be, 
to  a  hierarchy  of  more  inclusive  ends,  we  are  prepared  to  see 
that  identification  of  the  precise  ends  cherished  and  pursued 
by  any  society  is  a  very  considerable  item  in  the  program  of 
getting  an  understanding  of  that  society.  The  desires  of 
individuals  and  of  societies,  from  least  to  greatest,  give  us,  on 
the  one  hand,  our  means  of  interpreting  the  social  process  as  a 
whole;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  our  conception  of  the  social 
process  as  a  whole  gives  us  a  basis  of  comparison  by  which  to 
pass  judgment  upon  the  wisdom  or  the  unwisdom,  the  pro- 
gressiveness  or  the  obstructiveness,  of  the  social  ends  actually 
in  view  in  the  particular  societies  with  which  we  are  dealing.^  ^ 

"A  group  of  hypothetical  illustrations  of  social  ends  of  different  grades, 
in  the  case  of  States,  is  proposed  in  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  VI, 
pp.  512-31.  Formulas  of  the  social  end  in  general  are  proposed  loc.  cit.,  pp. 
201-3. 


544  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

5.  Subjective  Environment. —  This  phrase  seems  to 
have  been  coined  by  Dr.  Lester  F.  Ward.^'*  The  argument  in 
which  it  occurs  attempts  to  refute  a  certain  dogma  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  will,  and  to  show  that  all  volitions  depend  upon 
antecedents.  These  are  principally  internal,  and  constitute 
what  may  be  called  "the  subjective  environment."  Ward  dis- 
cusses at  length  the  implications  of  this  concept.  It  is  so  much 
more  familiar  in  essentials  than  some  of  the  other  categories  in 
our  schedule,  that  elaboration  may  be  omitted.  Professor 
Patten  has  made  use  of  the  same  phrase,  though  in  an  argu- 
ment which  seems,  on  the  whole,  rather  gratuitous.^ ^  Unless 
we  desire  to  weave  a  tissue  of  esoteric  mystery,  there  seems  to 
be  no  more  reason  at  this  point  than  elsewhere  in  social 
analysis,  for  anything  but  straightforward  description  of  the 
familiar.  The  fact  that  corresponds  with  the  phrase  is  so 
obvious  and  so  commonplace  that  it  is  difficult  to  realize  that  it 
deserves  high  rank  among  scientific  categories.  We  instinc- 
tively grope  after  something  beyond,  to  take  the  place  of  this 
everyday  knowledge.  The  machinery  and  the  consequences  of 
the  fact  lie  beyond  our  observation,  to  be  sure,  but  the  fact 
itself  is  hardly  hidden  from  the  most  unobservant. 

Every  individual  begins  to  be  a  repository  of  feelings, 
notions,  ideas,  prejudices,  beliefs,  theories,  purposes,  so  soon  as 
he  begins  to  be  conscious.  When  we  force  a  truce  in  psy- 
chology to  the  extent  of  assuming  a  distinction  between  the 
individual  and  these  his  mental  equipments,  we  are  aware  that 
the  individual,  as  we  know  him,  is  an  agent  whose  scope  is 
defined  just  as  evidently  by  these  mental  furnishings,  on  the 
one  hand,  as  by  the  forces  of  the  external  world,  on  the  other. 
The  born  Fenian  is  as  really  limited  in  his  conduct  by  an 
assortment  of  hereditary  assumptions  about  England,  as  he  is 
by  the  soil  and  climate  of  Ireland.  The  bom  Protestant  acts 
within  the  prescription  of  certain  impressions  about  the  Papists, 
that  are  just  as  real  as  the  mechanical  or  chemical  reactions  of 

"Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  II,  p.  321. 

"Annals  of  the  American  Academy,  November,  1894,  pp.  404  f. 


SUBJECTIVE  ENVIRONMENT  545 

his  body.  The  little  mathematics,  and  less  science,  and  the 
faint  odor  of  ethical  philosophy,  that  American  children  take 
with  them  from  the  common  school,  form  a  matrix  whose 
properties  the  social  psychologist  will  one  day  be  able  to 
describe  with  relative  accuracy.  Meanwhile  the  politicians 
already  know  how  to  count  upon  it  with  a  high  degree  of 
precision. 

In  other  words,  just  as  the  individual  carries  within  himself 
certain  conceptions  that  constitute  one  of  the  cardinal  condi- 
tions of  his  action,  so  groups  of  individuals  in  association  are 
foci  of  similar  influences.  The  association  is  the  radiation  of 
a  common  mental  content  through  an  aggregate  of  individuals. 
That  content  may  be  almost  a  negligible  quantity.  It  may 
amount  to  scarcely  more  than  common  desire  for  food,  com- 
mon assumption  that  the  food  must  be  got,  if  at  all,  within  this 
particular  territory,  and  common  acquiescence  in  the  necessity 
of  allowing  the  persons  born  also  in  this  territory  tO'  use  it  for 
their  food-getting. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  content  that  makes  up  the  subjective 
environment  may  be  that  highly  elaborated  collection  of  per- 
ceptions and  judgments  common  to  the  members  of  the  British 
Association  or  the  French  Academy.  Expressing  the  whole 
fact  again  in  terms  of  an  incident  abstracted  from  the  fact, 
the  social  process  is  a  process  of  realizing  the  subjective  con- 
tent of  the  associates.  Association  is  implicit  objectification  of 
that  which  is  in  the  minds  of  the  associates.  Association  is 
practical  adjustment  between  the  subjective  and  the  objective 
conditions  of  the  persons  associated.  More  simply  still,  the 
members  of  any  association  have  certain  notions  in  common. 
Their  association  is  the  common  response  to  the  stimulus  of 
these  notions.  No  association  is  merely  the  football  of  external 
conditions,  whether  social  or  physical.  Each  association  is 
what  it  is  by  virtue  of  a  common  spiritual  possession.  The 
fact  ought  to  be  too  clear  for  serious  dispute.  The  only  open 
question  pertains  to  the  propriety  or  utility  of  naming  the  fact 
"subjective  environment." 


546  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

6.  Social  Consciousness. —  Tarde  has  remarked: 

It  is  not  true  that  there  is  a  social  mind  distinct  from  individual 
minds,  and  in  which  the  individual  minds  are  contained  as  the  ideas  are 
within  the  individual  mind.  This  is  an  entirely  chimerical  idea  of  social 
psychology.  The  social  mind,  like  the  individual  mind,  includes  nothing 
but  ideas  —  states  of  consciousness.  The  states  of  consciousness  that 
make  up  the  social  mind  are  scattered  among  the  individuals  that  make 
up  the  society.  They  are  not  assembled  in  one  brain.  This  difference 
should  be  neither  exaggerated  nor  ignored.  There  are  two  sorts  of  asso- 
ciations:  first,  that  of  different  individual  minds  united  in  the  society; 
second,  that  in  each  of  them  of  states  of  consciousness  which  accumulate 
gradually,  and  proceed  for  the  most  part  from  other  minds.  In  each 
individual  man  there  is  reproduced  to  a  certain  extent  that  more  or  less 
systematic  aggregation  of  states  of  consciousness  that  constitutes  the  social 
type.    The  social  mind  consists  in  this  very  repetition." 

Mention  of  the  incident  "  social  consciousness "  is  the 
signal  for  attacks  at  various  points  along-  the  sociological  line. 
What  is  social  consciousness?  Where  is  it?  Does  it  have  a 
place  in  every  human  association  ?  Is  it  merely  a  late  and  rare 
development?  It  is  not  necessary  at  this  point  to  enter  very 
far  into  formulation  of  all  that  answer  to  these  questions  would 
involve ;  but  it  will  mark  an  advance  for  all  the  social  sciences 
when  we  shall  have  perceived  that  a  reality  is  here  recorded, 
and  when  we  shall  have  resolved  to  make  due  account  of  all 
that  the  reality  contains. 

Assenting  in  full  to  the  general  purport  of  the  citation  from 
Tarde,  we  furthermore  concede  at  once  that  the  fact  to  which 
we  apply  the  term  "  social  consciousness "  is  in  one  sense 
included  in  the  fact  which  we  have  called  above  "subjective 
environment."  All  the  content  of  the  social  consciousness  in  a 
given  case  is  a  part  of  the  subjective  environment  of  the  per- 
sons in  whom  it  occurs.  At  the  same  time,  a  very  replete  sub- 
jective environment  in  an  individual,  or  in  an  aggregation  of 
individuals,  may  contain  but  a  minimum  of  social  conscious- 
ness. Although  the  latter  may  be  placed  schematically  as  a 
species  under  the  former  as  genus,  each  seems  to  be  in  fact  a 
direct  phase  and  expression  of  association,  no  more  dependent 

"  Lrj  transformations  du  {'Otivoir,  p.  197. 


SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS  547 

on  the  other  than  each  term  in  our  schedule  is  dependent  upon 
all  the  rest. 

The  phrase  "social  consciousness"  has  been  construed  in 
various  ways,  and  survival  must  render  the  verdict  of  fitness; 
but  there  are  certain  plain  facts  which  must  not  be  confounded 
with  each  other,  however  we  apply  terms  in  dealing  with  them. 
The  fact  which  is  of  most  importance  in  this  connection,  to 
which  we  now  apply  the  term  ''social  consciousness,"  is  that 
at  some  time  or  other,  and  with  some  degree  of  clearness  or 
other,  members  of  every  group  perceive  that  the  group  exists, 
that  they  condition  it  and  are  conditioned  by  it,  that  their 
individual  interests  are  more  or  less  bound  up  with  the  affairs 
of  the  group,  and  that  the  existence  and  prosperity  of  the 
group  are  dependent  upon  the  conduct  of  its  constituent  indi- 
viduals. All  of  this  mental  state,  with  its  varying  scope  and 
intensity,  that  is  in  any  individual's  mind,  is  his  social  con- 
sciousness. 

If  the  group  is  composed  of  a  thousand  persons,  and  if  in 
each  of  them  the  fact  of  the  group-relationship  has  risen  above 
the  threshold  of  consciousness,  to  that  extent  social  conscious- 
ness is  a  part  of  the  subjective  environment  of  that  group. 
For  instance,  assuming  that  there  is  a  common  something  in 
the  minds  of  all  the  Frenchmen  in  an  arrondissement  when 
they  shout,  "  Vive  la  France !  "  that  common  element  may  be 
called  the  group-opinion,  the  group-feeling,  or  the  group- 
sentiment,  and  it  would  be  a  part  of  the  subjective  environment 
of  the  group.  It  might  or  might  not  contain  elements  of  social 
consciousness.  It  is  conceivable  that,  in  a  given  instance, 
"  Vive  la  France !  "  might  be  more  of  an  individual  than  a 
social  watchword.  In  one  man's  mouth  "  France "  might 
stand  merely  for  a  lively  sense  of  the  advantage  of  a  job  on 
the  public  works;  in  another's,  for  a  notion  that  "France"  is 
a  patron  saint,  to  be  conciliated  by  zealous  shouting;  in 
another's,  for  a  vague  feeling  that  "  France  "  is  his  glorified 
and  triumphant  self,  asserting  miscellaneous  superiority.  In 
so  far  as  either  of  these  notions  is  common  to  the  members  of 


548  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  group,  or  goes  to  make  up  the  motives  that  actuate  the 
group  as  a  whole,  it  belongs  in  the  category  "subjective  envi- 
ronment." In  so  far,  on  the  other  hand,  as  an  element  of  this 
common  mental  content  is  the  feeling  or  perception  of  the 
reality  of  the  association,  that  factor  is  also  the  "  social  con- 
sciousness," first  of  the  individual,  and  then  of  the  group. 

In  the  most  general  terms,  then,  we  may  describe  the 
reality  in  question  as  a  state  of  mind  primarily  in  the  indi- 
viduals, and  then  diffused  throughout  the  association,  consist- 
ing first  of  perception  that  the  group  exists.  If  we  may 
suppose  that  this  perception  may  occur  without  any  corre- 
sponding valuation  of  the  fact  so  perceived,  we  may  describe 
a  more  advanced  development  of  this  fact  by  adding,  second, 
that  the  members  of  the  group  place  a  certain  appraisal  of 
value  upon  the  group-relation,  as  something  to  be  cherished 
and  guarded.  In  this  stage  of  social  consciousness  we  have 
clannishness  and  tribal  exclusiveness ;  at  later  stages,  class- 
consciousness,  esprit  dc  corps,  patriotism,  or,  as  the  Germans 
phrase  a  kindred,  but  not  necessarily  quite  identical,  concep- 
tion, NationalitdtsgefUhl. 

Social  consciousness  need  not,  of  course,  in  all  individuals, 
be  restricted  to  the  limits  of  national  bounds.  A  few  people 
have  a  lively  sense  of  the  oneness  of  the  whole  human  race. 
International  law  is  a  certain  sort  of  proclamation  of  more 
than  national  consciousness.  It  is  not  a  universal  rule  that 
the  intensity  of  social  consciousness  is  inversely  as  the  diame- 
ter of  the  association.  The  law  is  much  more  intricate  than 
that,  and  cannot  as  yet  be  formulated.  Our  present  purpose 
is  satisfied  by  pointing  out  that,  wherever  there  is  a  relatively 
permanent  association,  some  form  and  force  of  an  idea  of  the 
association  begins  to  give  character  to  the  association.  It  is 
probably  at  its  nadir  in  the  horde. ^^  Perhaps  it  has  never  been 
at  once  more  intensive  and  extensive  than  in  the  feeling  of  the 

"On  the  other  hand,  we  have  pointed  out  above  (chap.  i6,  p.  208)  that  the 
present  tendency  is  to  interpret  the  horde  as  a  society  differentiating  indi- 
viduals, more  than  it  is  individuals  differentiating  a  society. 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW  549 

"chosen  people"  toward  the  "gentiles,"  and  of  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  toward  the  rest  of  the  world  jumbled  together 
as  "barbarians." 

The  ethnologists  and  folk-psychologists  have  the  task  of 
locating  and  measuring  this  incident  in  particular  cases  of 
primitive  men.  The  historians  must  furnish  data  for  detection 
and  estimate  of  its  w^orkings  in  later  societies.  A  decisive 
factor  in  sociology  as  a  scientific  basis  for  social  action  must 
at  all  events  be  found  in  the  operations  of  social  consciousness. 
Study  of  the  content  of  social  consciousness,  and  of  the 
processes  that  take  place  in  individual  minds,  as  causes  and 
effects  of  the  prevailing  state  of  social  consciousness,  is  pivotal 
in  sociological  theory. 

7.  The  Sociological  Point  of  View. —  Perhaps  there 
is  no  phrase  which  is  used  with  more  vagueness  of  meaning 
than  the  expression  "  the  social  point  of  view  "  or  "  the  socio- 
logical point  of  view."  Everybody  who  is  intelligent  today 
supposes  himself  to  be,  first,  "  scientific  "  and,  second,  "  socio- 
logical "  in  his  mental  attitude.  We  need  not  now  discuss 
what  is  involved  in  the  "scientific"  attitude,  but  under  this 
title  we  may  note  some  of  the  marks  of  the  sociological  atti- 
tude toward  the  world.  The  sociologists  are  trying  to  focal- 
ize within  one  field  of  vision  all  the  activities  that  are  going 
on  among  people,  so  that  men  and  women  who  get  the  benefit 
of  this  outlook  may  see  their  own  lives  in  their  actual  relation 
to  all  the  lives  around  them.  The  sociological  outlook  is  a 
position  chosen  for  the  deliberate  purpose  of  placing  each  of  us 
in  his  relations  to  all  the  rest,  so  that  the  meaning  of  each  one's 
part  in  the  complicated  whole  may  appear. 

Most  people  are  more  familiar  with  political  economy  than 
with  sociology  —  or  they  think  they  are.  Now,  political 
economy  does  an  essential  part  of  the  work  of  mapping  out 
relations  between  different  human  actions,  viz.,  those  actions 
that  have  for  their  primary  and  decisive  aim  the  gaining  of 
wealth.  But  the  work  of  political  economy,  as  compared  with 
the  demand  which  sociology  discovers,  may  be  likened  to  the 


550  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

work  which  an  ordinary  railroad  map  does  in  showing  up  the 
features  of  a  country.  When  we  look,  for  instance,  at  a  map 
issued  by  either  of  the  railroads  that  have  terminals  in 
Chicago,  we  are  able  to  learn  from  it  all  that  it  sets  out  to 
show  about  its  own  routes  and  connections.  From  that  map 
alone,  however,  we  should  be  likely  to  get  little  or  no  concep- 
tion of  the  topography  and  climate,  of  the  kinds  of  soil  or 
varieties  of  products,  of  the  density  of  population,  of  the  politi- 
cal divisions,  or  even  of  the  precise  geographical  relations  of 
the  country  through  which  the  road  runs.  In  order  to  have 
the  knowledge  necessary  for  all  departments  of  life  in  the 
locality,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  possess  the  information  that 
would  be  represented  by  a  series  of  geological,  topographical, 
meteorological,  political,  and  even  transportation  charts,  pic- 
turing in  turn  different  phases  of  natural  and  artificial  condi- 
tions within  the  selfsame  portion  of  territory  covered  by  the 
map  of  a  single  railroad  system. 

In  a  somewhat  analogous  way.  political  economy  deals 
with  the  system  of  industrial  lines  of  communication  in  a 
society  —  the  industrial  nerves  and  arteries  of  the  body  politic, 
so  to  speak.  But  the  life  of  society,  or  the  social  fact,  or  the 
social  process,  is  a  vast  system  of  physical,  physiological,  psy- 
chological, and  personal  action  and  reaction.  The  associa- 
tional  process  is  this  social  reality  when  we  consider  it  in 
motion.  In  order  to  understand  it  we  have  to  comprehend  not 
merely  the  industrial  element.  That  would  be  like  seeing 
only  one  thread  or  figure  that  runs  through  the  design  of  a 
tapestry.  To  know  the  social  process,  as  a  whole,  we  have 
to  be  a1)le  to  take  in  all  of  these  departments  of  action  that 
make  up  the  process,  i.  e.,  the  complete  design  of  the  fabric. 
We  have  to  understand  what  these  different  kinds  of  action 
have  to  do  with  each  other,  and  how  each  reacts  upon  the 
others. 

When  we  speak  of  all  tliis  in  cold  blood,  it  seems  to  be  a 
far-off  and  vague  affair,  with  which  we  have  the  least  possible 
concern.     That,  however,  is  the  same  mistake  which  we  make 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW  551 

if  we  think  we  have  no  concern  with  what  the  chemist  calls 
"sodium  chloride."  When  we  find  out  that  it  is  merely  the 
salt  that  we  want  to  use  every  day,  we  discover  that  it  is 
our  concern.  In  the  same  way  we  may  he  indifferent  to  the 
subject  of  "hydrous  oxide/"  but  if  it  is  presented  to  us  as 
drinking-water,  we  may  see  the  wisdom  of  knowing  some- 
thing about  it.  So  the  "social  process"  is  not  an  affair  that 
exists  outside  of  our  circle  of  interests.  Our  whole  life  — 
from  our  eating  and  sleeping,  to  our  thinking,  and  trading,  and 
teaching,  and  playing,  and  praying,  and  dying  —  is  a  part 
of  the  social  process.  In  us  the  process  has  its  lodgment.  In 
the  process  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  Instead  of 
not  being  concerned  with  it,  nothing  else  is  our  concern,  so 
far  as  we  are  citizens  of  the  world.  We  do  not  know  our  per- 
sonal concerns  until  we  see  through  and  through  the  social 
process. 

Moreover,  everything  that  we  learn,  and  try  to  apply  as 
action,  gets  its  meaning  in  its  connections  with  this  social 
process.  For  instance,  taking  portions  of  school  discipline  as 
a  sample  of  the  larger  whole ,  what  is  the  good  of  geographi- 
cal knowledge?  If  it  stops  with  geographical  facts  alone,  it 
is  not  worth  having.  Geography  is  worth  studying  because  it 
helps  to  explain  the  lives  of  people,  past  and  present,  and  the 
possibilities  of  people  in  the  future.  Or  why  is  literature 
worth  studying?  Simply  and  solely  because,  in  the  first  place, 
it  shows  us  the  inner  explanations  of  the  lives  of  people,  past 
and  present,  and  the  internal  resources  upon  which  to  build 
their  future;  then,  in  the  second  place,  because  it  imparts  to 
us  some  of  those  resources.  In  studying  geography  we  are, 
or  we  ought  to  be,  doing  on  a  broader  scale  just  what  the 
immigrant  does,  when  he  scratches  the  ground  where  he  halts 
his  prairie  schooner  to  see  what  sort  of  soil  is  under  his  feet. 
In  studying  literature  we  are  doing,  somewhat  more  dis- 
interestedly and  calmly,  just  what  the  lover  does  when  he 
studies  the  moods  and  tastes  of  his  mistress,  so  as  to  know 
how  to  make  successful  suit.     He  is  after  deep  facts  of  human 


55:2  A  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 


nature,  as  betrayed  in  an  individually  interesting-  specimen. 
We  are  after  similar  facts  of  human  nature  in  general. 

In  other  words,  we  do  not  know  anything  until  we  know 
it  in  connection  with  the  social  process.  The  things  that  we 
think  we  know  are  merely  waste  scraps  of  information,  until 
they  find  their  setting  in  this  reality,  to  which  all  knowledge 
belongs. 

To  recapitulate :  The  social  fact  is  the  incessant  reaction 
between  three  chief  factors:  (i)  nature;  (2)  individuals; 
(3)  institutions,  or  modes  of  association  between  individuals. 
Each  of  these  factors  is  composite,  but  at  this  point  we  may 
disregard  that  phase  of  the  situation.  The  social  process  is 
the  incessant  eiiolution  of  persons  through  the  evolution  of 
institutions,  zvhich  evolve  completer  persons,  who  evolve  com- 
pleter institutions,   and  so  on  beyond  any  limit  that  we  can  fix. 

Sociology  sets  out  to  discover  how  all  the  details  which 
anyone  may  learn,  about  things  or  about  people,  have  to  do 
with  each  other,  and  are  parts  of  each  other,  in  the  social 
process.  These  two  phases  of  reality  are,  therefore,  the 
setting  in  which  sociology  places  all  detailed  knowledge,  in 
order  to  make  it  complete  and  true. 

It  may  add  to  the  precision  of  our  concept  "  the  sociological 
point  of  view  "  to  repeat  the  substance  of  an  informal  address 
to  an  audience  of  economists  and  historians.^  ^ 

A  decade  ago,  at  a  meeting  of  the  American  Economic 
Association  in  New  York,  one  of  our  most  respected  econo- 
mists frankly  declared  that,  if  he  could  have  his  way,  no 
sociologist  would  ever  be  admitted  to  a  university  faculty 
without  permission  of  the  economists.  Meanwhile,  some  of 
us  have  found  the  monotony  of  life  not  a  little  relieved  by 
watching  the  process  by  which  this  genial  dogmatist  has 
triturated  himself  entirely  into  a  most  extreme  form  of  soci- 
ology.   I  want  to  go  on  record  with  the  prediction  that,  in  the 

"  Small,  discussion  of  GiddinRs'  paper,  A  Theory  of  Social  Causation, 
published  by  the  American  Economic  Association,  Third  Series,  Vol.  V,  No.  i, 
Part  II,  p.  1 75- 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW  553 

lifetime  of  children  already  born,  it  will  become  impossible  for 
anyone  to  be  appointed  to  the  humanities  division  of  the 
faculty  of  any  first-rate  university  or  college,  unless  he  can 
creditably  sustain  an  examination  in  general  sociology.  I  fur- 
ther predict  that  men  of  my  own  age  will  live  to  use  such 
terms  as  "  ethnologist,"  "  historian,"  "  economist,"  "  political 
scientist,"  "  sociologist,"  without  their  present  divisive  and 
exclusive  connotations. 

We  shall  perceive  that,  if  we  are  thoroughly  intelligent 
about  our  work,  we  find  it  to  be  concerned,  not  with  different 
material,  but  with  different  relations  of  the  same  material. 
We  are  not  one  of  these  specialists  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
other.  We  are  one  of  them  primarily  and  provisionally,  but 
the  nearer  we  get  to  the  real  meaning  of  our  material,  the 
more  are  we  all  of  them  ultimately  and  essentially,  in  pro- 
portions that  reflect  the  real  connections  of  the  relations  we 
try  to  interpret. 

The  sociologists  are  actually  reaching  results  that  their 
colleagues  in  the  other  departments  of  human  science  cannot 
afford  to  neglect.  These  results  are  not  yet  to  any  consid- 
erable extent  settled  formulas  of  explanation.  They  are  rather, 
as  Professor  Giddings  has  pointed  out,  apperceptive  categories 
which  mark  greater  or  less  removes  of  intelligence  from  naive 
conceptions  in  mere  terms  of  time  and  space.  To  emphasize 
further  what  we  mean  by  this,  I  may  say  it  is  simply  an  acci- 
dent that  sociologists  have  been  supposed  to  be  merely  a  sect 
of  economic  schismatics.  On  the  contrary,  the  relations 
between  the  sociologists  and  the  historians  are  much  more 
fundamental  and  significant  than  those  with  the  economists. 
The  sociologist  regards  the  economic  factor  in  the  human 
process  as  only  one  strand  in  the  cable  of  experience,  while 
the  task  of  the  complete  thinker  is  to  run  back  all  the  strands 
to  explain  their  sources  and  how  they  are  woven  together,  with 
the  use  of  the  whole  after  it  is  woven.  Now  it  may  be  said 
that,  with  the  rise  of  the  Austrian  School,  economic  theory 
virtually  came  into  line  with  the  method  demanded  by  the 


554  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

sociologist.  Carl  Menger  told  me  last  summer  that  in  his 
opinion  the  phrase  "  Austrian  School "  has  no  longer  any- 
thing but  a  purely  historical  meaning.  "  All  that  I  ever  con- 
tended for,"  he  said,  "  has  virtually  been  assimilated  by  every 
progressive  economist,  and  there  is  no  longer  any  reason  for 
distinctions  on  that  line."  The  Austrian  School  really  fought 
the  decisive  battle  for  the  psychological  factor  among  economic 
forces.  The  economic  element  in  experience  thus  takes  its 
place  with  all  the  other  elements  to  which  the  psychologic 
interpretation  is  applicable. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  historians  do  not  seem  to  be  agreed 
that  their  function  involves  any  interpretation  at  all.  To  be 
sure,  it  is  current  idiom  that  all  modern  historical  writing  is 
from  the  "  social  point  of  view."  Nevertheless,  from  the 
sociological  standpoint,  it  is  a  constant  question  whether  the 
historians  have  so  much  as  heard  that  there  be  any  social 
point  of  view.  The  social  point  of  view  is  that  every  event 
in  human  life,  whether  the  actors  get  a  glimpse  of  its  meaning 
or  not,  is  really  a  part  of  a  co-operative  process,  in  which 
each  detail  has  a  meaning  that  comes  from  its  connection  with 
the  whole.  This  viewing  the  incident,  whatever  it  is,  as  a 
partial  expression  of  the  whole,  with  consequent  discovery 
of  the  whole  in  the  incident,  and  of  the  incident  in  the  whole 
—  this  is  the  essence  of  the  social  point  of  view.  Men  who 
write  history  from  any  other  outlook  are  simply  newspaper 
reporters  whose  items  are  stale. 

But,  beyond  this  fundamental  difference,  the  charge  of 
the  sociologists  against  the  historians  is  that  the  latter  have 
learned  so  much  about  how  to  do  it  that  they  have  forgotten 
what  to  do.  They  have  become  so  skilled  in  finding  facts  that 
they  have  no  use  for  the  truths  that  would  make  the  facts 
worth  finding.  They  have  exhausted  their  magnificent  tech- 
nique in  discovering  things  that  are  not  worth  knowing  when 
they  get  through  with  them.  These  discoveries  may  be  taken 
up  by  somebody  else  and  brought  into  their  meaning  rela- 
tions ;  but  history,  as  it  is  mostly  written  today,  does  not  come 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW  555 

within  sight  of  those  relations.  The  historians  are  locating 
cinders  on  the  face  of  the  glacier,  but  they  overlook  the 
mountain  ranges  that  carry  the  glacier. 

To  take  an  illustration  from  work  that  employs  the  highest 
order  of  historiographic  technique,  Gardiner's  researches  on 
the  Stuart  period  have  amounted,  from  the  sociological  point 
of  view,  merely  to  highly  scientific  quarrying  of  raw  material. 
This  is  a  first  step  toward  interpretation  of  the  social  process, 
but  it  stops  as  far  from  interpretation  itself  as  the  stone- 
cutter from  finishing  the  architect's  work. 

Perhaps  the  parallel  will  overtax  the  academic  imagina- 
tion, but  for  further  illustration  we  may  risk  an  extreme  sup- 
position. Let  us  assume  that,  five  hundred  years  hence,  some 
historian  will  prove  that  the  present  American  administration 
did  or  did  not  have  a  guilty  foreknowledge  of  the  Panama 
revolution.  The  find  might  entitle  some  hopeless  young 
pedant  to  the  doctor's  degree,  but  what  of  it?  In  itself  it  is  of 
no  more  account  than  any  other  bit  of  fugitive  gossip.  It  has 
a  hundred  relations  that  are  significant,  but  merely  estab- 
lishing the  fact  may  be  nothing  more  than  the  pullet's  cack- 
ling over  the  porcelain  egg.  Objectively,  the  important  thing 
to  make  out  is  the  concurrence  of  world-interests  foreordain- 
ing the  plowing  of  the  furrow  between  the  continents.  Sub- 
jectively, the  thing  to  make  out  is  the  reaction  of  feelings 
that  made  those  objective  conditions  effective.  Merely  arriv- 
ing at  a  fact  is  simply  ending  in  an  intellectual  cttl  dc  sac. 
It  arrests  development  of  knowledge  at  a  point  of  no  impor- 
tance, and  rests  satisfied  with  that  lame  and  impotent  result, 
instead  of  pressing  on  toward  a  conclusion. 

We  have  not  covered  the  first  stage  of  social  self- 
knowledge  until  we  have  summed  up  historical  experience  in 
terms  of  the  perpetual  rhythm  of  development,  accommoda- 
tion, and  satisfaction  of  human  interests;  or,  as  Professor 
Giddings  prefers  to  say,  in  terms  of  stimulus  and  response. 
The  sociologists  can  do  little  toward  this  interpretation,  that 
is,  their  perspective  and  range  of  induction  would  be  viciously 


556  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

incomplete,  without  calling  on  the  historians;  but  the  his- 
torians' results  are  abortions,  if  their  growth  is  cut  off  before 
they  pass  into  the  stage  of  sociological  generalization. 

So  far  as  critical  historians  are  concerned,  the  sociological 
point  of  view  is  conspicuous  chiefly  by  its  absence  from  their 
writings.  The  exceptions  are  as  startling  as  they  are  gratify- 
ing. A  sociologist  who  has  given  attention  to  this  situation, 
experiences  a  distinct  shock  when  he  discovers  an  historical 
essay  that  proposes  real  search  for  social  processes,  as  in  the 
following  instance : 

Few  problems  are  more  interesting  to  the  sociologist  than  the  mutual 
interaction  of  different  civilizations.  What  are  the  conditions  which  assist 
fusion?  What  are  the  subtle  causes  that  arrest  it?  What  historical 
medium  acts  as  a  conductor?  What  medium  again  is  non-conducting? 
What  elements  of  national  genius,  taste,  and  character  are  capable  of 
exportation  ?  What  incapable,  and  why  are  some  characteristics  more 
easily  assimilated  or  imitated  than  others?  These  and  a  host  of  other 
subsidiary  questions  will  always  arise  when  conquest,  migration,  or  mere 
juxtaposition  places  two  different  races  in  a  position  where  it  is  impossible 
for  either  to  remain  unaffected  by  the  characteristics  and  ideals  of  the 
other." 

Whether  the  series  of  studies,  of  which  this  paragraph  is 
the  keynote,  will  justify  generalizations  upon  the  subjects  sug- 
gested, does  not  yet  appear.  In  any  event  the  enterprise  is  as 
laudable  as  it  is  exceptional. 

All  that  has  been  said  thus  far  in  Part  VI  is  a  variation 
of  the  general  argument  to  the  effect  that  the  chief  value  of 
sociology  arises  from  its  distinctive  point  of  view,  rather  than 
from  a  subject-matter  to  which  sociology  can  maintain  an 
exclusive  claim.  Our  thesis  is  that  human  life  cannot  be 
seen  whole  and  real  unless  it  is  construed  in  terms  like  those 
which  we  have  discussed.  We  do  not  know  anything  unless 
we  know  it  in  its  relationships.  The  details  of  human  experi- 
ence are  as  meaningless  as  a  form  of  type  knocked  into  pi, 
unless  we  have  the  clues  which  enable  us  to  distribute  and  reset 
the  events.     We  have  called  the  terms  treated   in   Part  VI 

"  H.  A.  I..  Fisher,  Studies  in  Napoleonic  Statesmanship,  Germany,  p.  i. 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW  557 

"the  primary  concepts  of  sociology."  It  is  hardly  worth  while 
to  offer  here  a  justification  of  that  designation.  In  brief,  it 
will  be  found,  after  a  little  experience  in  studying  society 
with  the  use  of  these  concepts,  that  the  other  terms  to  which 
we  now  turn  are  either  details  which  are  met  so  soon  as 
analysis  grows  precise,  or  they  are  notions  necessarily  implied 
by  the  larger  conceptions.  Indeed,  we  have  used  most  of 
them  already,  whether  they  have  been  named  or  not. 

It  is  not  necessary  at  this  point  to  propose  a  general  prin- 
ciple about  the  relative  importance  of  the  different  concepts. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  every  one  of  those  named  in  our 
schedule  is  actually  present,  in  some  degree  or  other,  in  every 
stage  or  part  or  episode  of  the  social  process  large  enough  to 
be  observed.  Analysis  of  a  given  section  of  experience 
involves  use  of  these  categories,  not  in  a  mechanical  way,  as 
though  they  were  equally  prominent  and  equally  significant; 
it  involves  their  use  just  as  the  different  phases  of  reaction 
known  to  chemistry  are  employed  in  analyses  of  physical  sub- 
stances; i.  e.,  in  precisely  the  proportions  in  which  they  prove 
to  have  significance  in  the  case  in  hand. 

Sociology  is  not  a  schematic  forcing  of  the  facts  of  life 
into  these  categories.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  we  gener- 
alize the  facts  of  life,  the  more  they  force  us  to  think  of  them 
under  these  forms.  Our  thought  in  these  forms  may  prove  to 
be  a  passing  stage  in  progress  toward  more  complete  and  posi- 
tive knowledge.  Meanwhile  these  concepts  certainly  stand 
for  a  stage,  whether  permanent  or  transient,  in  approach  to 
apprehension  of  social  fact  and  social  law.  Intelligent  use 
of  these  concepts  is  the  condition  of  attaining  that  measure 
of  insight  into  social  reality  which  sociology  at  present  com- 
mands. As  Part  VI  has  implied  throughout,  it  is  a  compara- 
tively simple  matter  to  get  a  list  of  the  important  sociological 
concepts.  It  is  quite  another  thing  to  get  so  used  to  applying 
them  that  they  are  the  natural  forms  in  which  the  ordinary 
facts  of  experience  present  themselves  to  the  mind.  On  the 
other  hand,  merely  filling  one's  sentences  with  terms  from  the 


558  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

sociological  vocabulary  does  not.  in  itself,  give  evidence  of 
sociological  insight.  The  state  of  mind  which  sociological 
study  should  produce  is  that  in  which  the  activities  of  society 
present  to  the  mind  simultaneously  all  these  relationships. 
Then  the  mature  sociological  judgment  will  instinctively  select 
the  one  or  more  of  these  relationships  which  may  be  peculiarly 
significant  for  the  case  in  hand,  and  will  take  the  others  for 
granted.  In  other  words,  it  is  necessary  to  get  so  much 
experience  in  analyzing  societies,  in  terms  of  these  concepts, 
that  we  can  readily  tell  which  of  them  w^e  must  continue  to 
consider,  and  w-hich  of  them  we  may  throw  out  of  the  account. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL   PROCESS* 

The  analysis  of  human  experience  which  leads  to  the 
formation  of  such  concepts  as  those  described  thus  far  in 
Part  VI,  leads  also  to  generalizations  which  are  similar,  but 
which  hold  a  slightly  different  rank  as  logical  categories. 
In  speaking  of  the  terms  in  the  schedule  (chaps.  29-35)  ^^ 
"  sociological  concepts,"  we  put  the  emphasis  on  mental  cate- 
gories as  such ;  notions  needed  as  logical  instruments  for  con- 
trolling the  material  of  knowledge.  We  do  not  assume  that 
these  notions  could  have  any  validity  if  they  did  not  repre- 
sent corresponding  phases  of  objective  reality,  but  the  imme- 
diate purpose  of  presenting  them  is  to  put  them  on  record  as 
scientific  categories,  to  be  used  in  extending  our  knowledge  of 
the  social  process. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  now  to  schedule  certain  traits 
which  we  observe  in  all  human  associations.  It  might  be  said 
that  certain  of  the  uniformities  which  we  have  put  in  the  list 
of  "  concepts "  belong  more  properly  in  the  present  list  of 
"  incidents,"  and  vice  versa.  The  more  exact  truth  is  that, 
in  so  far  as  the  terms  in  either  list  justify  themselves  at  all, 
each  of  them  might  appear  in  both  lists,  in  the  one  case  as 
symbols  of  subjective  categories,  and  in  the  other  case  as 
names  of  objective  phenomena. 

Whether  we  have  in  view  the  conjugal  association  of  one 
man  with  one  woman  in  the  family,  the  casual  association  of 
buyer  and  seller  in  the  market,  the  intermittent  association  of 
priest  and  layman  in  the  religious  assembly,  or  the  permanent 
association  of  citizens  in  the  nation,  certain  relationships  are 
universal  among  the  persons  associated.  The  intensity  of 
these  relationships  varies   indefinitely.      They  are  often   dis- 

^  For  incidents  in  the  structural  aspects  of  association  vide  De  Greef, 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  VIII,  No.  5. 

559 


56o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

cernible  only  as  tendencies.  They  might  not  be  suspected,  if 
other  experience  did  not  point  to  them.  In  a  given  association, 
many  of  them  are  rather  potential  than  actual.  With  such 
qualifications,  however,  it  is  true  that  all  human  associations 
whatsoever  betray  characteristics  in  common.  Enumeration 
of  these  characteristics  is  one  way  of  presenting  the  problems 
which  must  be  solved  before  there  will  be  a  science  of  soci- 
ology.^ 

When  we  assert,  therefore,  that  certain  incidents  are  com- 
mon to  all  human  associations,  and  when  we  proceed  to 
specify  certain  of  these  incidents,  we  are  not  proposing  socio- 
logical solutions.  We  are  not  professing  to  exhibit  the  inci- 
dents as  they  will  appear  after  criticism.  We  do  not  claim  that 
this  first  enumeration  shows  the  most  precise  or  profound  rela- 
tions between  these  incidents.  Indeed,  if  sociology  were  more 
ripe,  such  protestations  as  these  would  be  entirely  superfluous. 
In  point  of  fact,  however,  it  is  so  nearly  the  rule  among  socio- 
logical writers  to  propose  solutions  before  considering  what  is 
to  be  solved,  that  a  different  program  requires  tedious  explana- 
tion. The  problems  of  sociology  are  encountered  when  we 
arrive  at  the  sort  of  generalizations  which  we  are  about  to 
indicate.  After  the  schedule  that  we  present,  an  adequate 
theory  of  the  problems  may  seem  more  distant  than  before. 
We  need  not  presume  that  the  incidents  to  be  specified  are 
the  most  important  social  groupings.  We  need  not  assume 
that  they  will  be  the  final  terms  in  sociological  equations.  All 
that  we  at  present  claim  or  imply  is  that  when  we  survey 
human  associations  as  such  we  discover  certain  incidents,  attri- 
butes, properties,  or  qualities  in  them  all.  From  this  prelimi- 
nary perception  we  must  proceed  to  verify,  to  analyze,  to 
systematize,  and  to  explain.  Instead  of  proposing  arbitrary 
definitions  of  the  social  process,  we  begin  by  putting  together 
our  observations  that  wherever  we  find  individuals  associat- 
ing we  discover  such  incidents  of  the  relationship  as  the  fol- 
lowing, namely : 

'  Cf.  chap.  6. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  561 

I.  Plurality  or  Multiplicity  of  Individuals.^  —  At 
first  thought,  this  specification  may  seem  too  obvious  for  men- 
tion. Of  course,  it  takes  more  than  one  person  to  make  an 
association,  and  many  persons  to  form  a  society.  It  should 
go  without  saying  that  our  theories  of  association  must  be 
theories  of  conditions  among  which  numerousness  of  persons 
is  taken  for  granted.  Be  this  as  it  may,  we  should  seriously 
limit  our  perceptions  of  the  facts  within  which  the  social 
process  takes  place  if  we  failed  to  take  notice  of  certain  impli- 
cations of  this  primary  fact  of  multiplicity.'* 

The  Germans  have  the  proverb,  "One  man  is  no  man." 
Probably  the  fact  which  this  aphorism  expresses  to  most 
people  is  that  without  co-operation  we  fail  to  get  the  utmost 
use  of  ourselves.  This  is  certainly  true,  but  it  is  not  the  ele- 
mentary truth.  The  mere  existence  of  other  people  beside 
self  is  a  condition  which  qualifies  the  conduct  of  the  self. 
DeFoe  pictured  one  of  the  mainsprings  of  social  action  when 
he  portrayed  the  workings  of  Crusoe's  mind  on  discovering 
the  footprints  in  the  sand.  Henceforth  Crusoe  was  in  contact 
once  more,  not  merely  with  nature,  but  with  nature  plus  man. 
The  problem  of  life  was  now  more  involved,  more  uncertain, 
more  formidable;  but  at  the  same  time  more  hopeful  and 
inspiring.  There  is  now  more  to  lose  and  more  to  gain,  and 
more  to  stimulate  personal  effort  to  avoid  the  loss  and  secure 
the  gain. 

The  tradition  referred  to  above,^  of  the  frontiersman  who 
abandoned  his  claim,  and  moved  on  into  the  wilderness  because 
he  "wanted  breathing-room,"  when  another  settler  squatted 
within  six  miles  of  his  location,  is  a  piece  of  American  humor ; 
it  nevertheless  rests  on  a  permanent  psychological  basis.  The 
mere  presence  of  other  people  is  in  the  first  instance  a  con- 

*  Cf.  chap.  34,  sec.  i. 

*  On  the  effect  of  the  element  of  number  see  Giddings,  "  Exact  Methods  in 
Sociology,"  Popular  Science  Monthly,  December,  1899,  especially  pp.  153  f. 
On  quantity  as  quality  see  Ratzenhofer,  Sociologische  Erkenntniss,  pp.  88,  90. 

»Pp.  145,  146. 


S62  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

straint.  Whether  or  not  all  want  the  same  piece  of  ground,  or 
the  same  routes  of  travel,  or  the  same  material  things,  the  fact 
that  the  many  people  exist  is  a  bar  to  the  free  action  of  each. 
The  Hebrew  story  of  Cain,  the  tiller  of  the  ground,  unable 
to  live  comfortably  by  the  side  of  Abel,  the  keeper  of  sheep, 
portrays  a  constant  feature  in  human  relationships.  The 
popular  saying,  "  No  house  was  ever  big  enough  for  two 
families,"  is  merely  a  partial  report  of  the  profounder  fact  that 
the  world  is  not  big  enough  for  two  persons,  until  a  process 
of  adjustment  accommodates  each  to  the  other.  If  the  per- 
sons number  more  than  two,  the  adjusting  process  is  much 
more  imperative  and  more  difficult.  Multiplicity  of  persons, 
therefore,  is  a  condition  in  which  means  of  correlation  have  to 
be  invented.  Multiplicity  of  persons  presents  its  own  prob- 
lems to  the  persons.  They  vary  from  the  primitive  problems 
of  shepherd  and  farmer,  to  the  present  reaction  of  the  public 
opinion  of  the  world  upon  Russian  autocracy  and  Japanese 
strategy. 

Multiplicity  of  persons  is,  on  -the  other  hand,  at  the  same 
time  an  enlargement  of  self.  There  was  good  science  in  the 
Levitical  promise :  "  And  ye  shall  chase  your  enemies  .... 
and  five  of  you  shall  chase  a  hundred,  and  a  hundred  of  you 
shall  put  ten  thousand  to  flight"  (Lev.  26:8).  Both  for 
good  and  for  evil,  five  men  may  have  twenty  times  the 
resources  of  one,  and  one  hundred  may  have,  not  twenty,  but 
one  hundred  times  the  resources  of  five.  To  be  sure,  the 
question  arises :  "  But  why  does  it  not  work  in  the  same  way 
with  the  hundred  and  the  ten  thousand  as  with  the  five  and  the 
hundred?"  It  does;  the  one  group  manifests  the  working  of 
the  same  laws  which  operate  in  the  other.  But  the  dominant 
forces  evidently  differ  in  the  t\yo  sides  of  the  comparison. 
This  simply  serves  to  illustrate  an  element  upon  which  stress 
is  to  be  laid  at  every  point  in  our  analysis,  namely :  No  single 
factor  in  association  is  sufficient  to  explain  the  general  fea- 
tures of  the  social  process.  On  the  contrary,  association  is  a 
function  of  the  most  complex  variety  of  variables  that  science 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  563 

has  anywhere  encountered.  Our  business  is  to  detect  as  many 
of  these  variables,  and  to  learn  as  much  about  them,  as  we 
can,  qualitatively  at  all  events;  and  not  to  allow  our  theories 
of  proportions  to  outrun  our  knowledge  of  qualities. 

Moreover,  we  may  find  the  division  of  the  facts  frequently 
remarked  in  the  effects  of  the  physical  environment  duplicated 
in  the  case  of  the  personal  environment,  namely :  The  multi- 
plicity of  persons  has  an  effect,  first,  upon  the  bodily  and 
mental  structure  of  men;  and,  second,  upon  the  thoughts,  the 
actions,  and  the  experiences  of  men.  All  the  phenomena  of 
sexual  and  social  selection,  in  the  physiological  sense,  would 
be  evidence  under  the  first  head,  and  it  is  unnecessary  to 
enlarge  upon  this  phase  of  the  facts.  Multiplicity  of  persons 
is  the  sine  qua  non  of  that  wide  range  of  selection  which  pro- 
motes rapid  and  radical  modification  of  individual  type.  The 
opposite  condition  —  that  is,  paucity  of  persons  —  tends  to 
produce  rapid  and  radical  degeneration.  For  example,  inter- 
marriages, such  as  those  of  the  Jukes  (described  by  Dugdale), 
the  tribe  of  Ishmael  (described  by  McCulloch),  the  Smoky 
Pilgrims  (described  by  Blackmar,  American  Journal  of  Soci- 
ology, January,  1897),  the  Bavarian  royal  family,®  the 
Virginia  poor  whites,  etc.,  etc.  Groups  like  these  abstract 
themselves  from  the  larger  world,  and  virtually  live  in  a  world 
of  few  people. 

Under  the  second  head  we  may  simply  remark  that  the 
modifying  effect  of  multiplicity  of  persons  upon  the  thoughts, 
actions,  and  experiences  of  men  is  now  so  notorious  that  it 
has  given  rise  to  that  section  of  social  science  which  we  name 
"mass-psychology."  Very  familiar  facts  betray  to  the  most 
casual  observation  the  subtle  action  of  mere  numbers.  Such 
instances  as  "  students'  night"  at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  furnish  cases 
in  point.  Whatever  may  be  our  opinion  of  the  individual 
characteristics  of  the  members  of  the  crowd,  we  know  that 
certain  of  these  traits  would  not  come  to  expression  without 

•  Cf.  F.  A.  Woods,  "  Mental  and  Moral  Heredity  in  Royalty,"  Popttlar 
Science  Monthly,  August-September,   1902. 


564  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  reinforcement  of  numbers.  Again,  it  would  be  easy  to 
fill  a  volume  with  observations  upon  the  modifying  effects  of 
city  life  upon  the  manners  and  the  characters  of  persons. 
This  change  is  both  positive  and  negative.  There  are  stimu- 
lating and  disciplinary  results  from  mingling  with  large  num- 
bers of  people,  and  there  are  the  opposite  effects  of  being  lost 
in  the  crowd,  the  sense  of  irresponsibility,  the  feeling  of 
license,  the  repudiation  of  former  standards  of  morality,  etc. 
No  one  has  attempted  to  fix  the  precise  point  of  equilibrium 
between  small  and  large  numbers  in  their  healthful  and 
unhealthy  effect  on  persons.  The  probability  is  that  this 
point  varies  in  relation  to  different  factors;  but  that  there  is 
such  a  point,  above  and  below  which  increasing  or  diminish- 
ing numbers  exert  rapidly  changing  influence,  is  familiar  to 
every  student  of  society. 

Accordingly,  as  we  have  argued  before,"  when  Durkheim, 
for  instance,  assigns  to  sociology  the  sphere  in  which  there  is 
the  exercise  of  social  constraint,  and  when  De  Greef  makes 
the  subject-matter  of  sociology  the  phenomena  of  contract, 
each  arbitrarily  limits  the  province  of  the  science.  The  only 
permissible  limitation  is  the  boundary  within  which  there  is 
human  contact.  This  is  not,  like  constraint  and  contract,  a 
supposed  clue  to  the  character  of  the  social  process,  or  a  dic- 
tum about  the  content  of  the  process.  It  is  merely  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  formal  scope  of  the  process,  and  an  assertion  that 
we  may  not  with  scientific  sanction  restrict  our  science  of 
human  association  to  any  limits  narrower  than  the  utmost 
iDOunds  within  which  human  contacts  occur.  Association  is 
contact,  and  contact  is  association.  This  does  not  mean  that 
contact  and  association  are  identical  concepts,  but  that  contact, 
physical  or  spiritual  or  both,  is  the  absolute  condition  of  asso- 
ciation, and  that  variations  of  contact  are  among  the  factors  in 
the  modification  of  all  human  association. 

2.  Attraction. —  What  we  see,  when  we  observe  any 
human  association  whatever  from  a  certain  angle,  is  a  group 

^  Chap.  5. 


SOME  INCIDEN-TS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  565 

of  phenomena  that  may  be  described  as  "  attraction."  This 
detail  is  not  an  attempt  at  speculative  subtlety,  but  an  expres- 
sion of  the  most  familiar  commonplace.  It  is  nevertheless 
worthy  of  serious  notice.  Whenever  two  or  more  people  asso- 
ciate, something  in  each  draws  them  tow-ard  the  others.  Each 
is  a  magnet  acting  upon  the  rest.  However  it  may  be 
explained,  each  finds  himself  better  satisfied  by  joining  him- 
self to  the  others  than  in  isolation  from  them.  The  total 
reason  for  the  association  is  probably  not  to  be  found,  in  a 
large  proportion  of  instances,  in  the  phenomena  of  attraction; 
or,  at  any  rate,  these  latter  are  manifestations  of  deeper  influ- 
ences. Conditions  external  to  the  person,  and  subjective  con- 
ditions not  included  within  this  relation,  are  not  overlooked 
when  we  concentrate  attention  upon  attraction.  Nor  are  we 
attempting  to  use  the  term  "  attraction "  as  a  metaphysical 
explanation  of  associations.  We  are  simply  pointing  out  the 
objective  fact  that,  wherever  two  or  more  persons  associate, 
each  exercises  in  some  sort  and  degree  an  influence  by  which 
the  others  are  drawn.  In  many  cases  the  energy  of  this  attract- 
ive force  may  not  be  apparent,  or  it  may  emerge  only  on  rare 
occasions.  These  occasions  reveal  the  relation  that  is  qualita- 
tively constant,  although  it  may  be  concealed  by  more  efficient 
factors  in  the  situation.  The  affinities  that  hold  the  horde 
together;  the  sexual  impulse  that  stimulates  the  union  of 
men  and  women  in  families ;  the  bond  of  proved  prowess  that 
unites  the  predatory  band ;  the  profession  of  a  common  faith ; 
the  betrayal  of  common  impulse  —  the  touch  of  nature  that 
makes  all  men  kin  —  consciousness  of  common  need  or  com- 
mon fear  or  common  hope ;  the  sense  of  good-fellowship ; 
the  honor  among  thieves ;  the  discipline  of  the  regiment ;  the 
finesse  of  the  salon ;  the  eloquence  of  the  rostrum ;  the  pres- 
tige of  the  court;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  discovery  of 
uncommon  traits ;  the  perception  of  superior  strength  or  skill ; 
complementary  elements,  lacking  in  one  party  and  present  in 
the  other  —  these  may  in  turn  be  both  sign  and  means  of  social 
attraction.     Persons  draw  persons.     There  are  affinities,  sym- 


566  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

pathies,  by  which  one  person  supplements  another.  Whatever 
the  ultimate  reasons  for  associations,  individuals  are  the  chan- 
nels through  which  many  of  these  reasons  work.  The  gravita- 
tion of  person  to  person  throughout  associations  is  as  real  as 
though  it  were  the  only  movement  involved  in  society. 

3.  Repulsion. —  It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  the  more 
obvious  incidents  of  association  without  introducing  prema- 
ture hypotheses  or  theories  of  their  relations  to  each  other.  \Ve 
must  presently  refer  to  facts  of  association  in  which  this  inci- 
dent is  involved,  in  which  it  may  be  resolved  into  more  funda- 
mental forms.  Our  present  purpose,  however,  is  to  schedule, 
not  to  explain.  The  schedule  is  to  present  the  facts  as  they 
appear  before  we  make  serious  attempts  to  interpret  them,  or 
to  place  them  in  their  proper  order.  This  setting  forth  of  the 
data  to  be  studied  is,  however,  an  important  step  in  the  scien- 
tific process.  If  it  seems  to  ignore  plain  and  obvious  simplifi- 
cations, it  may  prove  to  estop  many  explanations  that  are 
more  simple  than  true.  The  phenomena  of  social  repulsion 
are  worth  tabulation  as  such,  whatever  may  prove  to  be  their 
relation  to  other  phenomena. 

In  every  human  association,  from  the  monogamous  family 
to  international  concerts,  individuals  and  groups  move  cen- 
trifugally  with  reference  to  each  other.  The  desires  of  which 
one  individual  is  conscious  set  bounds  to  the  conduct  of  others. 
Convergence  is  simultaneous  with  divergence,  co-operation 
with  competition,  confidence  with  distrust,  sympathy  with 
antipathy,  fidelity  with  treachery,  allegiance  with  rebellion, 
loyalty  with  treason.  So  prominent  is  this  phase  of  associa- 
tion that  Tarde,  for  instance,  was  forced  to  abandon  the  origi- 
nal form  of  his  thesis  in  explanation  of  social  facts.  Instead  of 
relying  upon  "  imitation "  as  the  sole  and  sufficient  clue  to 
social  truth,  he  reluctantly  admitted  the  fact  of  "opposition" 
to  equal  consideration." 

The  family  is  not  wholly  a  sympathetic  synthesis  of  father 
and  mother,  parents  and  children,  brothers  and  sisters;  it  is  at 

"  Vide  Social  Lmvs,  chap.  2. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  567 

the  same  time  an  unsympathetic  antithesis  of  contrasted  units. 
The  clan  is  no  more  a  closed  circle  against  other  clans  than  it 
is  an  arena  of  collisions  between  its  members.  The  camp  is 
one  vast  weapon  against  the  enemy;  at  the  same  time  it  is  a 
chaos  of  counter-ambitions  and  jealousies  and  conflicts  and 
intrigues.  The  industrial  community  is  a  peaceful  association 
of  men  disposed  to  live  and  let  live;  at  the  same  time  it  is  a 
collection  of  men  keen  to  discover  each  other's  weakness,  alert 
to  detect  each  other's  selfishness,  and  intent  upon  defeating 
each  other's  aggression.  The  religious  fellowship  is  a  com- 
munion of  spirit,  to  the  limit  of  common  belief;  then  it  is  a 
more  or  less  intolerant  and  violent  disunion  at  the  points  of 
inevitable  variance  of  belief.  The  nation  is  an  association  in 
which  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  may  be  the 
alleged  principle  of  cohesion;  but  the  illusions  of  individual 
and  group  egotism  incessantly  confuse  judgments  of  this 
greatest  good,  and  the  nation  is  always  a  thinly  disguised 
anarchy  of  supposed  interests  asserting  themselves  in  costly 
ignorance  of  fit  policies  of  accommodation.  The  facts  and  laws 
of  social  repulsion  contain  phases  of  sociological  problems 
co-ordinate  with  those  of  social  attraction. 

4.  Interdependence.*^ — The  phenomena  represented  by 
this  title  bring  constantly  to  view  the  essential  thesis  of  the 
organic  concept  of  society,  namely :  "  Every  point  in  every 
man's  life  is  related  to  every  point  in  every  other  man's  life." 

All  the  incidents  and  conditions  to  which  this  chapter  calls 
attention  are  abstractions  from  the  social  fact.  In  reality  they 
do  not  have  separate  existence.  Each  is  in  some  fashion  both 
cause  and  effect  of  all  the  rest.  Consequently,  we  find  that 
each  of  these  incidents  is  in  some  sense  a  phase  of  each  of  the 

"Spencer  asserts  (Ethics,  Vol.  II,  p.  184)  that  there  is  no  mutual  depend- 
ence among  the  Eskimos.  If  this  is  true,  association  is  to  that  extent  non- 
existent among  them.  The  statement,  however,  is  true  only  relatively.  Indeed, 
Spencer  implicitly  contradicts  himself,  when  he  describes  the  use  of  satirical 
songs  by  the  Eskimo  to  avenge  insults.  My  colleague.  Professor  T.  C. 
Chamberlin,  describes  Eskimos  combining  efforts  in  landing  a  whale,  with 
remarkable  results. 


568  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

others.  It  is  impossible  to  abstract  them  so  completely  that 
this  partnership  with  the  others  is  removed  from  view.  Nor 
is  it  desirable  that  such  falsification  of  reality  should  be  possible. 
The  desideratum  in  social  analysis  is  ability  to  concentrate 
attention  in  turn  upon  thinkable  phases  of  the  social  fact,  while 
constantly  remembering  the  surrounding  phases  to  which  this 
temporarily  prominent  phase  is  actually  subordinate. 

Thus,  when  we  have  said  that  multiplicity  of  persons  is  a 
condition  of  association,  we  have  said  by  implication  that  every 
form  in  which  persons  influence  each  other  is  also  a  condition 
of  association.  In  other  words,  interdependence,  for  example, 
is  merely  an  aspect  of  the  reality  present  in  the  fact  of  multi- 
plicity. Conversely,  multiplicity  is  merely  a  form  in  which  the 
reality  of  interdependence  is  realized.  Each  is  something  more 
than  a  form  of  the  other,  because,  as  we  are  pointing  out,  each 
is  a  condition  of  the  other  as  well  as  a  consequent  of  the  other. 
If  this  reciprocal  relationship  can  be  read  out  of  reality  in  the 
case  of  any  title  in  our  schedule,  it  will  be  proof  that  it  is 
erroneously  listed  as  a  universal  incident  of  association.  Each- 
of  these  incidents  is  in  turn  an  aspect  of  the  prevalence  of 
cosmic  law  throughout  the  world  of  people.  We  shall  find, 
therefore,  that  each  of  the  incidents  named  is  in  turn  an  aspect 
of  each  other  condition.  This  gives  occasion  for  reiterating  a 
fundamental  proposition,  namely :  To  think  the  social  reality, 
or  any  incident  zvithin  the  social  reality,  zue  have  to  learn  how 
to  think  together  all  the  incidents  and  conditions,  all  the  forces, 
all  the  forms  of  correlation  of  forces,  and  all  the  processes  of 
action  among  the  forces,  that  alzvays  constitute  association. 
The  intellectual  ideal  for  which  sociological  discipline  strives 
is  judgment  so  firm  that  whenever  a  social  incident,  issue, 
problem,  or  situation  is  encountered,  the  mind  will  hold  that 
object  before  itself,  first,  as  conditioned  by  all  these  universal 
influences  which  we  are  beginning  to  schedule,  and.  second,  as 
a  particular  resultant  of  certain  specially  effective  forces  that 
have  operated  within  these  conditions.  The  greater  part  of 
this  balancing  process  unquestionably  is,  and  should  be,  sub- 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  569 

conscious.  But  the  sociologically  intelligent  mind  will  know 
how  to  bring  any  force  or  process  concerned  out  of  subcon- 
sciousness into  active  consciousness,  so  soon  as  the  detail  in 
question  threatens  to  be  treated  in  any  doctrinaire  or  irrespon- 
sible fashion. 

To  illustrate :  It  would  be  very  crude  and  pedantic  for 
every  person  who  wants  to  improve  the  physical,  industrial, 
political,  educational,  aesthetic,  social,  or  religious  conditions  of 
a  modern  city  to  be  constantly  shuffling  over  in  his  mind  the 
technical  names  of  the  different  categories  with  which  we  are 
dealing  in  this  argument.  There  is  something  more  practical. 
At  the  same  time,  every  person  who  exercises  an  influence  upon 
forms  of  social  amelioration  will  have  a  use  for  these  categories 
incessantly.  Suppose,  for  instance,  the  subject  in  hand  is  a 
proposed  change  in  the  public-school  curriculum.  A  little 
coterie  of  a  dozen  persons  might  put  their  heads  together  and 
decide  what  they  think  is  the  best  curriculum.  Then  they 
might  start  out  upon  a  crusade  to  introduce  that  curriculum. 
It  might  contain,  for  instance,  some  religious  catechism  upon 
which  the  dozen  might  be  unanimous.  It  is  morally  certain, 
however,  that  no  group  of  twelve  persons  in  any  American  city 
could  agree  upon  a  religious  catechism  that  would  be  accepted 
by  the  majority  of  the  voters  in  their  community.  The  crusade 
would  be  a  very  naive  campaign  against  the  incidents  already 
named.  The  wise  people  of  the  city  would  at  once  mobilize  in 
their  consciousness  these  conditions  that  exist,  although 
scarcely  one  in  a  hundred  thousand  of  them  may  ever  have 
used  the  technical  categories  by  which  we  designate  the  con- 
ditions. 

The  point  of  emphasis  is  that  the  desideratum  of  theoretical 
sociology  is  familiarity  with  the  mechanism  of  the  social 
process.  We  need  this  abstract  knowledge  for  practical  use 
whenever  it  is  called  into  requisition  by  the  particular  piece  of 
work  which  we  have  in  hand.  The  humor  and  the  pathos  of 
Don  Quixote  and  Sancho  Panza  must  be  traced  to  precisely 
their  innocence  of  this  elementary  insight  into  human  condi- 


570  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

tions  and  proportions.  There  are  both  humor  and  pathos  in 
some  of  the  most  ambitious  sociological  theories,  as  well  as 
some  of  the  most  earnest  social  effort  today,  from  like  igno- 
rance of  relations  that  foreordain  disappointment  all  along  the 
line  of  unsophisticated  effort. 

These  observations  are  equally  applicable  to  each  of  the 
categories  in  the  present  schedule,  and  to  (*thers  that  will 
follow.  We  return  then  to  the  particular  category  with  which 
we  are  now  concerned,  namely,  interdependence,  although 
under  the  title  "multiplicity"  we  have  implied  all  that  can  be 
said  in  brief  to  emphasize  the  present  detail. 

It  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  physical  science  that  if  a 
stone  be  thrown  into  a  mill-pond,  the  waves  produced  will  beat 
on  the  outer  rim  of  space.  Nobody  professes  that  science  has 
means  of  tracing  these  weaves  beyond  very  restricted  limits. 
But  the  motion  once  started  affects  all  matter,  although,  for 
the  most  part,  in  an  inappreciable  degree.  Similarly,  the  pres- 
ence of  each  man  in  the  w^orld  is  a  force  that  conditions  the  life 
of  each  other  man.  Each  man  diminishes  the  amount  of  avail- 
able space  in  the  world ;  he  increases  the  demand  for  food ;  he 
augments  the  potential  supply  of  labor;  he  multiplies  the  com- 
plexity of  desires  which  must  be  co-ordinated  if  there  is  to  be 
accommodated  human  action. 

Within  the  economic  realm  this  relation  has  been  made 
familiar  by  an  enormous  body  of  literature,  and  by  the  informal 
discussions  of  every  interested  group,  whether  of  specialists  or 
laymen.  Beginning  with  the  rudimentary  facts  of  the  division 
of  labor,  and  enlarging  the  survey  until  it  takes  in  theories  of 
the  reciprocal  dependence  of  production,  distribution,  and  con- 
sumption, economic  doctrine  has  been  the  skirmish  line  of  the 
perception  which  is  still  wider  than  the  economic  formulations. 
This  perception  is  that  every  man  is  a  contributing  cause  of 
every  other  contemporary  and  subsequent  man ;  and,  con- 
versely, that  every  man  is  a  composite  product  of  every  ante- 
cedent and  contemporary  man.  Not  only  what  we  may  do.  but 
what  we  may  think  and  what  we  may  be,  is  partly  decided  for 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  571 

US  —  not  wholly  by  us.  Still  further,  each  elementary  desire, 
shared  and  shaped  by  many  persons,  becomes  a  modifying 
factor  in  the  activity  of  all  other  persons  and  in  all  other  situa- 
tions. That  is,  the  effective  desires  of  people  for  the  chief 
satisfactions  —  health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  beauty, 
rightness  —  are  in  turn  modifying  conditions  which  help  to  fix 
the  directions,  and  prescribe  the  limits,  of  all  activity  aimed  at 
satisfaction  of  either  of  these  desires. 

We  may  concede  without  argument  that  the  health  and  the 
wealth  interests  are  essential,  while  the  other  interests  are 
dependent.  The  most  pressing  problem  of  society  is  how  to 
secure  these  essential  conditions  for  all  the  members  of  society. 
We  may,  therefore,  confine  our  elaboration  of  the  present 
proposition  to  its  relation  with  the  industrial  activities.  We 
may  repeat  our  theorem,  then,  in  a  more  specific  form,  namely : 
The  details  of  men's  economic  activities  are  fixed  by  the  status 
of  their  own  and  other  people's  desires  for  health  and  socia- 
bility and  knowledge  and  beauty  and  rightness,  in  combination 
with  their  desires  for  wealth.  We  will  elaborate  this  proposi- 
tion, not  chiefly  for  its  own  sake,  but  to  illustrate  the  general 
fact  of  "  interdependence." 

We  may  give  full  value  to  the  environment  condition ;  we 
may  admit  that  in  the  large  the  environment  determines  what 
the  economic  activity  shall  be.  At  the  same  time,  the  character 
of  the  man  environed  and  the  character  of  all  other  men  also 
determine  what  this  economic  activity  shall  be.  Our  industry 
cannot  vary  beyond  the  limits  that  are  set  by  the  traits  of  the 
men  who  have  lived  before  us  and  those  who  live  round  about 
us.  It  is  too  obvious  and  familiar  for  more  than  passing 
remark,  that  the  physical  labor  force  of  any  generation  depends 
upon  the  degree  of  bodily  capacity  inherited  from  the  preced- 
ing generation.  What  the  bodily  resources  of  our  day  shall 
accomplish  is  limited  by  the  inherited  capital  of  health  and 
bodily  development.  Not  pausing  for  illustration  or  further 
statement  of  this  factor,  we  may  turn  to  less  familiar  phases 
of  the  same  condition. 


572  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Let  us  assume,  for  instance,  a  certain  intensity  of  the  wealth 
desire.  Operating  in  a  vacuum,  it  would  impel  the  peoples  of 
Europe  to  labor  until  that  desire  is  satisfied,  or  until  they 
dropped  down  exhausted.  But  the  sociability  desire  is  to  be 
reckoned  with.  This  not  only  dictates  customs  in  business, 
like  the  closing-  of  banks  for  three  hours  at  noon ;  it  not  only 
dictates  family  and  group  merrymakings  on  birthdays  and 
other  anniversaries;  it  causes  whole  populations  to  adjourn 
business  on  nunierous  feast-  and  fast-days,  thus  making  indus- 
try in  a  large  measure  impossible  even  for  those  who  prefer  to 
work.  The  notorious  American  intensity  in  pursuit  of  wealth 
is  not  proof  that  Americans  want  wealth  more  than  other 
people,  but  merely  that  for  the  present  we  want  other  things 
less. 

If  all  of  us  cared  for  sociability  as  much  as  some  French- 
men do,  and  in  the  same  way,  we  should  spend  a  couple  of 
hours  on  the  boulevards  each  afternoon,  taking  turns  parading 
up  and  down  the  sidewalks,  and  sitting  at  the  cafe  tables  com- 
menting on  other  paraders  between  our  sips  of  cafe  an  cognac 
or  absinthe.  If  we  cared  for  sociability  as  much  as  the  Italians 
do,  and  in  the  same  way,  we  should  have  our  St.  Mark's 
squares,  and  spend  our  evenings  listening  to  the  music  and 
exchanging  gossip ;  or,  like  some  Neapolitans,  we  should  haunt 
the  streets  half  our  days,  and  drive  dull  care  away  all  our  nights 
by  wassail  with  our  friends.  If  we  cared  for  sociability  as 
much  as  the  English  do,  and  in  the  same  way,  we  should  be 
more  like  them  in  making  business  tributary  to  sport  and  ix)li- 
tics  and  country  life.  If  we  had  the  quality  of  sociability  that 
the  Swiss  and  the  Australasians  have,  we  should  be  much 
farther  advanced  toward  democratizing  all  our  economies. 

The  emphasis  in  these  cases  is  on  the  fact  that  in  the  coun- 
tries named  business  is  as  certainly  modified  by  certain  qualities 
and  tendencies  of  sociability  as  it  is  by  the  physical  environ- 
ment or  the  desire  for  wealth.  The  intensity  of  effort  that  may 
go  into  business  enterprise  is  limited  by  social  instincts  as  truly 
as  by  material  resources.     That  there  must  be  economic  effort 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  573 

of  some  sort  is  decreed  by  the  conditions  which  are  antecedent 
to  the  social  desires,  and  more  persistent.  But  given  a  certain 
minimum  of  material  resource,  and  the  industrial  activities  at 
once  encounter  as  real  barriers  and  deflectors  in  the  social  char- 
acteristics of  persons  as  seas  and  rivers  encounter  in  dikes  and 
levees  and  breakwaters.  In  a  word,  the  quantity  and  energy 
and  direction  of  economic  action  in  a  society  depend,  among 
other  things,  upon  the  social  quality  of  that  society.  The  fact 
that  Carthage  grew  rich  by  commerce,  while  Rome  did  not,  is 
due  in  part  to  the  contrast  in  social  conditions,  not  to  the 
excessive  greed  of  the  Carthaginians.  On  the  contrary,  the 
rapacity  of  the  Romans  was  more  relentless  than  that  of  their 
rivals.  The  means  which  it  adopted  to  satisfy  itself  were 
determined  in  part  by  different  conceptions  of  the  social 
worthiness  of  war  as  compared  with  production  and  peaceful 
exchange. 

Similar  results  have  been  seen  in  modern  Europe  from  the 
operation  of  the  aristocratic  taboo  upon  business.  Since  capi- 
talistic business  has  risen  to  such  unique  importance,  the  Ger- 
man, French,  and  English  aristocratic  classes  have  been  stricken 
with  dismay  at  the  rising  powxr,  commercial  and  political,  of 
the  class  controlling  money.  The  aristocrats  have  simply 
handicapped  themselves  in  the  commercial  race  by  social  tradi- 
tions that  have  proscribed  business  careers.  They  have 
improvidently  bred  business  capacity  out  of  their  ranks.  This 
is  one  clue  to  the  anti-Semitic  movement  in  France  and  Ger- 
many. The  Jews  have  been  forced  into  trade,  commerce,  and 
banking  by  the  policy  of  the  Christian  nations  since  Chris- 
tianity came  into  political  power.  They  have  developed  busi- 
ness instincts  which  were  not  originally  peculiar  marks  of  the 
race.  They  are  the  superiors  of  the  social  leaders  in  ability  to 
carry  on  the  kinds  of  business  that  predominate  in  our  day,  and 
they  are  consequently  the  objects  of  impotent  jealousy  on  the 
part  of  the  classes  that  demand  artificial  prestige.  The  chief 
reason  why  there  is  no  anti-Semitic  movement  in  England  is 
that  democracy  is  so  much  more  intelligent  and  thorough  there 


574  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

than  in  France  and  Germany.  The  predominance  of  the  aris- 
tocracy has  been  more  or  less  a  fiction  for  a  long  time,  and  the 
failures  of  the  aristocracy  to  succeed  in  the  capitalistic  game  do 
not  move  the  nation  to  any  strong  sympathetic  emotions  in 
their  behalf.  The  other  elements  have  learned  to  stand  on 
their  own  feet  in  business,  and  to  acknowledge  the  rights  of 
more  capable  men,  whatever  their  race  or  religion. 

One  of  the  ablest  portions  of  Von  Hoist's  Constitutional 
History  of  the  United  States  is  that  in  which  he  shows  the 
impossibility  of  combining  the  social  ideas  on  which  slave  labor 
was  founded  with  free  industry  in  the  same  political  society.^ *^ 
The  dependence  of  economic  activity  on  social  conditions  was 
never  more  clearly  depicted.  From  the  earliest  details  that  the 
ethnologists  collect  of  social  decrees  of  the  sex  line  in  industry, 
down  to  the  distinctions  between  wholesale  and  retail  trade  as 
passports  to  different  strata  of  polite  society,  history  bristles 
with  illustrations  of  the  present  thesis^  namely :  What  eco- 
nomic activity  may  be  is  decided,  not  by  economic  interests 
alone,  but  invariably  by  conformity  of  economic  action  to 
internal  and  external  social  conditions. 

It  was  not  our  natural  environment,  but  the  colonial  policy 
of  Great  Britain,  that  set  limits  to  our  industrial  development 
before  the  War  of  Independence.  Again,  it  was  not  our  home 
resources,  but  the  attitude  of  foreign  nations  toward  our  com- 
merce, that  crippled  our  trade  until  after  the  War  of  1812. 
If  it  be  answered  that  this  was  really  one  industrial  society 
pitting  itself  against  another  industrial  society,  that  it  was  thus 
an  industrial  conflict  pure  and  simple,  and  so  not  a  case  in 
point,  we  may  concede  that  this  is  largely,  but  not  wholly,  true. 
We  may  then  cite  the  clearer  instances  of  our  long  knocking  at 
the  door  of  China  and  Japan  for  admission  of  our  trade.  The 
exclusion  of  foreign  nations  from  these  countries  was  not 
primarily  economic;  it  was  social.  The  objection  to  foreigners 
was  not  in  the  first  instance  opposition  to  foreign  goods,  but 

'"Vide  1856-59,  chap.  6. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  575 

to  foreign  people.^  ^  There  was  social  antipathy  which  refused 
to  mix  with  Europeans.  So  long  as  that  antipathy  existed, 
trade  relations  were  impossible.  In  China  the  barrier  has  been 
broken  down  to  a  considerable  extent  by  force.  In  Japan  it  has 
been  removed  from  within  as  well  as  from  without.  And  since 
the  new  social  atmosphere  has  existed,  new  possibilities  of  eco- 
nomic action  have  arisen.  Our  present  relations  with  Cuba, 
Porto  Rico,  and  the  Philippines  are  not  determined  by  economic 
conditions  alone,  but  by  social  conditions  on  both  sides.  The 
present  status  of  the  labor-and-capital  question  is  an  indication 
of  our  social  conceptions  much  more  than  it  is  an  exhibition 
of  inevitable  economic  reactions.  In  short,  the  kind  of  eco- 
nomic activity  that  any  society  may  carry  on  depends  not  alone 
on  its  physical  habitat,  and  the  economic  quality  of  its  mem- 
bers ;  it  depends  upon  the  social  wants  of  its  members  and  of 
its  neighbors.  What  it  can  do  industrially  depends  upon  what 
itself  and  the  rest  of  the  world  want  socially. 

It  would  be  equally  possible  to  treat  the  present  division  of 
our  subject  by  showing  various  classes  of  interdependencies 
between  a  society  as  a  whole  and  neighboring  societies.  The 
method  followed  thus  far  may,  however,  be  continued  with 
equal  advantage  through  the  discussion.  We  are  considering, 
namely,  the  dependence  of  the  business  element  in  a  society's 
activities  upon  the  desires,  either  within  or  without  the  society, 
that  are  not  primarily  economic.  We  may  repeat  the  thesis, 
then,  in  this  form :  The  economic  activities  of  individuals  or 
groups  are  conditioned  by  the  status  of  the  knowledge  interests 
in  themselves  and  in  their  neighbors.  In  his  Development  of 
English  Thought,  Professor  Patten  has  elaborated  the  thesis 
that  national  thinking  is  the  product  of  the  nation's  economic 
activities.  He  is  quite  right  if  he  organizes  his  generalization 
into  harmony  with  its  converse,  namely:  a  nation's  economic 
activity  is  a  product  of  the  nation's  thinking.  Otherwise  the 
generalization  is  a  half-truth  that  hardly  needs  to  be  exposed. 

The  world  was  just  the  same  essentially  six  thousand  years 

"  We  might  say,  too,  "  not  to  foreign  goods,  but  to  foreign  gods." 


576  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

ago  that  it  is  today ;  electricity  would  have  run  along  a  wire  in 
Adam's  time  just  as  it  does  at  present,  if  opportunity  had 
offered;  steam  expanded  just  as  forcibly  in  Noah's  day  as  it 
does  now;  lyddite  would  have  exploded  just  as  terrifically 
while  the  Hebrews  were  making  bricks  in  Egypt  as  it  did  on 
the  Tugela  or  before  Mukden ;  the  sun  would  have  printed  a 
picture  on  a  plate  just  as  distinctly  in  Solomon's  palace  as  in  a 
modern  photographer's  parlors.  The  reason  why  Adam  did 
not  talk  to  his  wife  and  children  over  a  telephone,  the  reason 
why  the  ark  was  not  propelled  by  turbine  engines  and  triple 
screws,  why  Moses  did  not  shoot  down  Pharaoh's  soldiers  with 
rapid-fire  guns,  why  we  have  no  photographs  of  Solomon  and 
his  court,  is  primarily  that  these  people  had  not  sufficiently 
observed  and  thought  through  the  facts  of  nature  and  the 
wants  of  men.  We  have  ten  thousand  comforts  that  antiquity 
did  not  enjoy,  simply  because  we  have  the  result  of  ten  thou- 
sand times  as  much  knowledge  of  the  resources  of  life  as 
antiquity  commanded.  These  truisms  are  indexes  of  the 
conditions  we  are  now  considering.  Specifically,  the  economic 
actions  of  men  are  conditioned  by  the  knowledge  and  the 
knowledge-desires  of  themselves  and  other  men. 

Perhaps  the  illustration  that  most  readily  suggests  itself  to 
American  minds  is  the  case  of  Catholic  Europe  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  Europeans  were  as  greedy  of  gain  and  as  eager  for 
adventure  as  they  have  ever  been.  They  were  crowding  upon 
each  other,  and  were  anxious  to  find  new  sources  of  wealth. 
Mexico  and  Peru  were  rich  enough  to  create  greed,  if  it  had 
never  existed.  The  ocean  washed  European  shores  just  as  it 
does  now.  The  trade  winds  blew  the  same  favoring  gales. 
Sun  and  moon  and  stars  were  the  same  safe  guides  to  the 
sailor's  path.  Why  were  this  and  that  not  put  together?  Pri- 
marily because  the  state  of  knowledge  in  Europe  prohibited  a 
breaking  out  of  the  l30unds  of  the  known  world.  Men  did  not 
dare  to  trust  the  compass.  They  had  not  yet  invented  quad- 
rant or  sextant.  But,  more  than  all,  the  theologians  dominated 
men's  minds  with  warnings  that  it  was  heresy  to  explore  for 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  577 

regions  unknown  to  ecclesiastical  cosmology.  The  Genoese 
sailor  who  at  last  summoned  effrontery  enough  to  believe  in 
pushing  farther  west  for  a  new  way  to  the  east,  had  to  contend 
more  desperately  against  biblical  texts  and  monkish  interpreta- 
tions than  against  economic  obstructions. 

Indeed,  in  all  the  dealings  between  more  and  less  enlightened 
peoples,  from  the  beginning  to  the  present  moment,  the  status 
of  knowledge  in  each  party  has  conditioned  the  economic 
activities  of  the  other.  The  aborigines'  ignorance  of  relative 
values  has  been  the  temporary  spur  to  adventure.  Ignorance 
of  natural  resources,  or  of  means  of  utilizing  them,  has  in  a 
thousand  ways  modified  economic  action.  Ignorance  of  the 
traditions  of  peoples  has  resulted  in  ruinous  policies  of  inter- 
course.^^ At  present  Americans  hardly  need  to  be  informed 
that,  between  two  societies  which  are  in  contact,  the  decisive 
factor  may  be  the  mental  content  of  each  group  respecting  the 
other.  If  the  Americans  had  known  the  Filipinos,  and  the 
Filipinos  the  Americans,  as  well  as  Americans  and  any  Euro- 
pean nation  know  each  other,  there  would  have  been  no  blood- 
shed in  the  process  of  organizing  a  permanent  government  and 
restoring  order  and  industry. 

Emerson's  aphorism,  "  No  man  can  be  heroic  except  in  an 
heroic  world,"  is  an  overstatement  of  an  underrated  truth. 
No  man  can  be  his  best  in  a  world  unappreciative  of  that  best. 
No  group  can  be  its  best  in  a  world  not  correspondingly  at  its 
best.  A  worldly  wise  man  shows  some  of  his  wisdom  when  he 
dilutes  it  with  folly  in  dealing  with  fools.  Societies  must  per- 
force conform  their  economic  policies  to  the  state  of  knowledge 
in  the  other  societies  that  make  up  their  area  of  contact. 

We  repeat,  then,  our  leading  proposition  in  this  section, 
namely:  Interdependence  is  a  constant  condition  zvithin  which 
human  association  occurs.  We  are  illustrating  this  proposition 
through  one  of  the  many  series  of  ways  in  which  it  is  exempli- 
fied. We  are  observing  that  the  conduct  of  any  society,  with 
respect  to  either  of  its  elementary  desires,  is  conditioned  by  the 

"  Cf.  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Warren  Hastings. 


578  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Status  of  that  society,  and  of  other  societies,  with  reference  to 
each  of  the  other  elementary  desires.  We  come  to  the  beauty- 
desire.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  show  that  the  beauty- 
desire  has  exerted  as  strong  inter-societary  influence  as  some 
of  the  other  factors,  because  it  is  not  true.  It  is  true,  however, 
that  this  factor  has  always  exerted  a  subtle  and  pervasive  influ- 
ence, ever  since  there  has  been  human  intercourse.  For  a 
generation  we  have  been  pursuing  in  the  United  States  a  policy 
of  tariff  protection,  ostensibly  in  the  interest  of  home  manu- 
factures. At  the  same  time,  the  fact  that  the  love  of  beauty,  as 
applied  to  the  arts,  is  so  much  more  advanced  in  Europe  than  in 
America,  has  given  to  many  kinds  of  European  manufactured 
goods  a  prestige  that  carries  them  over  our  tariff  obstructions. 
The  reputation  for  finish  that  European  goods  enjoy,  together 
with  the  reputation  for  taste  that  some  Americans  affect,  gives 
foreign  products  a  vogue  that  forces  peculiar  trade  methods  in 
our  own  markets.  To  sell  a  piece  of  Connecticut  worsted  in 
many  an  American  tailor  shop,  it  must  bear  a  south-of-England 
or  a  west-of-France  label.  Parallel  cases  might  be  repeated 
indefinitely.  In  all  trade  relations  between  exporting  and 
importing  countries,  the  aesthetic  standard  is  a  prime  factor. 
Even  Italian  and  French  art  squints  toward  the  taste  of  Ameri- 
can parvenus  instead  of  aiming  solely  at  aesthetic  ideals. 

Every  tourist  in  Europe  today  will  be  shown  in  England 
churches  denuded  of  statuary,  and  otherwise  mutilated,  by  the 
troops  of  Cromwell ;  while  at  Versailles  the  desire  for  revanche 
does  not  prevent  the  keepers  of  the  palace  from  praising  the 
Germans  for  protecting  the  art  treasures  at  their  mercy  during 
the  occupation.  Just  as  the  state  of  aesthetic  appreciation 
softens  the  rigors  of  war,  so  it  modifies  the  economic  process 
of  nations  in  peace.  The  annual  hegira  of  Americans  to  the 
Old  World,  saving  thousands  of  complacent  Europeans  from 
poverty,  and  maintaining  whole  groups  of  occupations,  must 
be  attributed  in  part  to  the  aesthetic  interest  of  Americans. 
The  crowding  of  people  from  country  to  city  throughout  tlie 
world  is  economic  and  social,  but  also,  though  unconsciously 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  579 

and  pervertedly,  aesthetic.  The  recent  Massachusetts  law  pro- 
hibiting building  in  Copley  Square  to  a  height  alx^ve  ninety 
feet,  is  a  local  illustration  of  the  principle  before  us ;  namely, 
in  general,  that  all  human  conduct  is  dependent  upon  conditions 
extrinsic  to  the  immediate  motive  of  the  conduct;  and  specifi- 
cally, that  all  economic  conduct  is  subject  to  the  limitation  that 
cesthetic  standards  may  enforce. 

Lastly,  in  this  series  of  illustrations,  we  specify  the  particu- 
lar that  economic  action  conforms  in  the  final  analysis  to  the 
group-conception  of  rightness.  A  German  economist  has  said 
that  "  economic  demand  is  a  section  of  the  moral  standard  of 
the  community."  The  African  slave  trade  lasted  as  long  as 
Boston  could  keep  its  conscience  quiet  enough  to  accept  a  share 
of  its  profits.  The  early  policy  of  our  settlers  toward  the 
Indians  tended  to  a  level  corresponding  with  the  assumption 
that  no  Indian  has  any  rights  which  a  white  man  is  bound  to 
respect.  The  colonial  policy  of  most  European  nations  today, 
and  of  England  until  after  the  lesson  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion was  taken  to  heart,  illustrates  the  conception  that  colonists 
are  not  only  subjects  of  the  government,  but  a  species  of  com- 
mon slaves  of  the  more  favored  subjects,  to  be  exploited  in  the 
interest  of  the  ruling  people.  It  is  needless  to  multiply 
instances.  We  are  dealing  with  an  element  in  the  situation 
that  has  made  its  impression  in  various  ways  upon  theories, 
and  is  already  modifying  deliberate  programs.  The  discovery 
has  been  made  too  often  to  be  any  longer  debatable,  that  one  of 
the  factors  which  fix  the  metes  and  bounds  of  economic  action 
is  the  moral  standard  of  the  people  who  make  the  market. 

We  repeat,  then,  the  main  thesis  of  this  section,  which  the 
foregoing  discussion  has  perhaps  needlessly  elaborated,  namely : 
Every  social  incident  zvhatevcr,  be  it  the  daily  experience  of  an 
individual  zvithin  a  restricted  group,  or  the  secidar  career  of  a 
continental  society,  is  determined  by  forces  not  wholly  within 
itself.  It  is  a  function  of  a  great  number  of  variables,  working 
within  conditions  that  are  constant  in  essence,  but  changeable 
in  their  manifestation  in  particulars.     Every  social  situation  is 


S8o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  product  of  everything  else  that  exists  in  the  world.  To 
change  the  situation,  it  is  necessary  to  break  the  equilibrium 
of  forces  that  preserves  the  status,  by  setting  free  some  new 
factor.  The  dependence  of  each  and  every  social  element, 
whether  larger  or  smaller,  upon  outlying  elements  of  which  it 
is  a  part,  requires  this  first  step  in  every  process  of  understand- 
ing the  social  situation,  namely :  the  effort  to  determine  pre- 
cisely what  the  particular  conditions  are  that  exert  a  significant 
influence  upon  the  element  in  question. 

This  program  is  instinctively  adopted,  after  a  fashion,  by 
every  man  who  tries  to  deal  with  concrete  social  questions. 
For  instance,  in  all  our  current  treatment  of  trusts  we  either 
seek  or  assume  an  explanation  of  their  origin.  How  do  trusts 
come  to  exist?  One  man  says  that  they  are  brought  about  by 
the  tariff;  another,  that  they  spring  from  competition; 
another,  that  they  are  produced  by  criminal  collusion  with  the 
railroads;  another,  that  they  are  the  product  of  class  legisla- 
tion; etc.,  etc.  The  least  intelligent  of  these  explanations 
implies  recognition  of  the  dependent  and  resultant  character  of 
trusts.  Few  agitators  seem  to  realize  how  many  and  compli- 
cated are  the  elements  which  have  conspired  to  produce  trusts, 
and  consequently  how  many  influences  must  co-operate  to 
change  the  equilibrium  of  forces  represented  in  trusts.  All  the 
attention  that  men  are  paying  to  the  subject  today,  however, 
enforces  the  sociologist's  claim  that  scientific  analysis  of  condi- 
tions in  which  each  social  problem  has  its  setting  is  the  sine 
qua  non  of  practical  social  intelligence.  We  have  to  learn,  in 
each  particular  case,  not  merely  that  interdependence,  as  an 
abstract  concept,  describes  the  situation;  we  must  proceed  to 
analyze  and  measure  the  particular  elements  upon  which  the 
situation  in  question  depends.  We  then  have  the  terms  of  our 
problem,  with  approximately  known  contents,  and  may  proceed 
to  deal  with  them  accordingly. 

5.  Discreteness  or  Discontinuity  of  the  Individuals. 
—  The  intervals  in  space  and  in  time,  between  individuals  that 
make  up  associations,  have  been  commented  upon  in  various 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  581 

ways  by  different  branches  of  social  science.  To  the  economist 
they  have  been  interesting,  for  instance,  as  accounting  for  the 
diffusion  of  economic  effects.  The  contrast  between  the  effects 
of  a  blow  upon  a  heap  of  grain  and  upon  a  soHd  body  has 
become  a  classic  ilkistration  in  this  connection.  To  the  poHti- 
cal  scientist  the  fact  affords  ckies  to  the  phenomena  of  political 
inertia  and  momentum.  To  the  psychologist  it  presents  prob- 
lems concerning  the  distribution  of  mental  stimuli.  To  soci- 
ology it  early  supplied  an  essential  modifying  term  in  the 
organic  concept.  Expressed  psychologically,  the  incident  now 
in  question  reveals  the  fact  that  there  is  no  social  sensorium. 
Stimuli  actually  reach,  not  society,  but  individuals.  There  is 
imperfect  transference  of  impulse  from  one  person  to  another, 
because  persons  who  are  closest  to  each  other  in  space  are 
always  more  or  less  distant,  and  often  effectually  insulated,  in 
thought.  All  the  processes  of  assimilation  have  to  go  on  in 
many  individuals  before  they  can  combine  for  any  conduct. 
There  is  something  analogous  to  involuntary  muscular  action 
in  the  phenomena  of  mass-movements,  to  be  sure ;  but  it  is  long 
before  any  new  impulse  becomes  a  permanent  stimulus  in 
masses,  and  constantly  influences  their  action. 

Intelligent  reading  of  history,  or  observation  of  current 
events,  should  suffice  to  procure  a  proportionate  place  for  this 
social  incident  in  our  theories.  It  is  written  large  in  every 
passage  of  human  experience,  and  wisdom  must  recognize  its 
importance. 

Among  the  commonplaces  of  experience  that  are  partially 
accounted  for  by  this  incident,  we  may  mention  slow  assimila- 
tion of  modifying  influence  throughout  human  associations. 
As  a  rule,  men  move  with  what  often  seems  to  the  theorist 
irrational  sluggishness  in  assimilating  progressive  forces.  The 
fact  of  the  discreteness  of  the  units  makes  this  inertia  of  masses 
not  only  intelligible,  but  natural.  It  was  six  centuries  before 
Englishmen  realized  in  full  on  the  investment  they  made  when 
they  wrested  Magna  Charta  from  King  John.  Baptists  and 
Quakers,  as  well  as  Jews  and  Catholics,  are  still  living  who  can 


582  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

testify  from  personal  knowledge  how  long  it  was,  after  the 
declaration  of  the  principle,  before  there  was  security  of  reli- 
gious toleration.  Our  country  was  a  nation  on  paper  in  1 789 ; 
it  only  decided  definitely  to  begin  to  be  a  nation  in  reality  in 
1865.  Two  million  inferior  human  beings  were  made  the  legal 
equals  of  fifty  million  superiors  in  this  country  a  generation 
ago;  but  legal  fictions  cannot  work  miracles,  and  the  race 
problem  in  America  is  in  some  respects  more  difficult  than 
ever.  For  a  hundred  years  we  have  had  the  right  in  America 
to  be  a  self-governing  people;  but  when  we  weigh  our  muni- 
cipal administrations  in  the  balance,  we  are  tempted  to  believe 
that  we  have  accepted  the  ballot,  a  symbol  of  liberty,  in  substi- 
tution for  the  actual  exercise  of  civic  liberty.  Here,  then,  is  a 
constant  condition  of  human  relationship,  to  be  placed  in  cal- 
culation most  carefully  when  we  are  most  convinced  of  the 
illimitable  possibilities  of  human  improvement.  The  enormous 
time  necessary  to  secure  a  single  item  of  social  gain  is  per- 
petual prophecy  aganst  doctrinaire  programism. 

The  contribution  of  social  analysis  to  the  overcoming  of 
this  inertia  must  be  made  through  due  appreciation  of  the  fact 
now  before  us,  viz.,  the  distance,  moral  and  intellectual  more 
significant  than  physical,  between  the  elements  that  make  up 
society.  How  this  distance  may  be  bridged,  how  channels  of 
intercommunication  may  be  opened  and  kept  open,  is  one  of  the 
foremost  problems  of  social  technology. 

6.  Solidarity  or  Community. —  In  distinction  from  the 
incident  "  interdependence,"  the  fact  in  view,  when  we  make 
note  of  ''solidarity"  or  "community,"  is  not  primarily  the 
dependence  of  one  part  of  an  association  upon  other  parts,  but 
the  common  relation  of  all  parts  to  certain  conditions  zvhich 
may  at  first  appear  to  be  zvholly  external,  or  to  inftuence  only  a 
certain  select  few  ivithin  the  association.  Thus,  not  alone  the 
individuals  who  must  coast  our  Atlantic  seaboard,  or  the  Great 
Lakes,  or  the  Gulf,  or  the  Pacific,  are  affected  bv  the  storms 
from  year  to  year ;  those  storms  limit  the  life-conditions  of  the 
whole  population  of  the  continent.     We  are  in  a  common  lot, 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  583 

SO  far  as  we  are  affected  by  climate,  by  the  health  of  the  world 
at  large,  by  its  industrial  system,  its  political  institutions,  its 
moral  ideas,  etc.,  etc.  The  temporary  curtailment  of  the  out- 
put of  gold  in  the  Transvaal  does  not  affect  the  brokers  of 
South  Africa  and  London  alone;  it  does  not  confine  its  influ- 
ence to  the  banking  or  the  business  world.  It  distributes  its 
influence  over  the  whole  of  every  civilized  country.  The 
world's  demand  for  gold  changes  the  conditions  of  life  for 
every  factory,  shop,  and  farm  in  the  United  States. 

The  particular  fact  to  be  impressed  here  is  that,  whatever 
be  the  effect  of  an  external  influence  upon  an  association,  and 
whatever  counter-influences  may  operate  within  the  associa- 
tion, an  influence  bearing  upon  that  association,  as  for  instance 
depression  of  the  national  credit,  is  not  an  impersonal  affair; 
it  presently  comes  home  in  some  way  to  all  the  individuals  in 
the  association.  The  machinery  by  which  this  is  accomplished 
has  been  suggested  in  part  in  our  discussion  of  interdependence, 
but  this  incident  of  community,  or  solidarity,  is  separable  in 
thought  from  the  antecedent  incident  of  interdependence  by 
virtue  of  which  community  becomes  more  specific. 

It  is  this  fact  of  community  which  has  most  enforced  the 
organic  concept  in  its  essential  features.^  ^  The  universality 
and  intimacy  of  relations  between  men  is  a  fundamental  ele- 
ment in  social  theory.  It  is  not  a  fact  completely  distinct  from 
the  facts  already  pointed  out,  but  it  is  a  distinguishable  aspect 
of  those  facts.  Whatever  be  the  relations  that  press  upon  some 
men,  those  relations  are  a  part  of  the  lot  of  all  men.  The 
oppression  of  the  Jews  in  Russia,  and  of  the  Armenians  in 
Turkey,  becomes  a  make-weight  in  the  politics  of  England  and 
America.  The  difficulties  of  farmers  in  East  Prussia  help 
make  the  "eastern  question"  in  China,  and  threaten  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  in  South  America.  The  local  politics  in 
Ireland  may  hold  the  balance  between  parties  in  the  United 

"  We  have  shown  reasons  why  our  thinking  about  human  life  must  always 
retain  something  of  the  idea  emphasized  by  this  crude  conception.  (Parts  II 
and   III.) 


S84  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

States.  The  state  of  crops  in  Russia  is  reflected  in  prices  on 
the  Chicago  board  of  trade. 

It  would  be  possible  to  rewrite  history  in  terms  of  this 
single  condition.  Of  course,  it  would  be  a  one-sided  view  of 
history,  but  it  would  correctly  report  one  of  the  correlations  of 
facts  that  are  involved  in  history.  We  might  urge  the  thesis: 
History  is  the  incessant  distributioti  of  conditions  from  centers 
where  they  are  evident,  to  the  rest  of  society  in  which  they  are 
gradually  assimilated  and  lost  from  viezv.  The  classic  illustra- 
tion would  be  the  political  absolutism  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
as  affected  by  the  French  Revolution.  The  Revolution  was  in 
one  sense  local  to  France;  in  another  sense  it  re-created  the 
world.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  spirit  of  French  administration 
has  been  changed  more  than  that  of  Germany  by  the  assimila- 
tion of  the  Revolution  by  each. 

Again,  we  might  review  the  different  classes  of  satisfac- 
tions, and  the  activities  which  appetite  for  them  stimulates,  and 
we  should  find  that  the  desires  of  one  part  of  the  world,  and  the 
means  of  satisfying  them,  presently  become  equated  with  the 
same  class  of  desires  and  satisfactions  in  all  the  rest  of  the 
world.  The  health  of  Calcutta  and  the  Arabian  peninsula  is 
presently  the  health  of  London  and  New  York.  The  commer- 
cial system  of  Asia,  Africa,  and  South  America  is  both  cause 
and  effect  of  the  commercial  and  fiscal  system  of  England  and 
America.  The  social  customs  of  Bushmen  and  Fuegians  may 
not  supplant  those  of  European  nations,  but  they  supply 
material  for  revision  of  our  ideas  and  for  broadening  our 
conceptions  of  social  utility.  The  knowledge  gained  by  rude 
races,  and  that  derived  by  the  keenest  science,  are  interchanged, 
and  the  culture  of  the  world  tends  to  become  one.  When  the 
fashion  of  our  chief  cities  sets  apart  a  week  for  devotion  to  the 
chrysanthemum,  we  need  look  no  farther  for  proof  that  the 
jesthetic  life  of  alien  civilizations  coalesces  and  harmonizes. 
The  Parliament  of  Religions  in  Chicago  in  1893  was  merely 
a  symptom  of  a  condition  that  is  as  old  as  human  intercourse. 
Religion  is  not  a  local  nor  a  racial  but  a  human  want,  and  the 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  585 

want  will  not  be  satisfied  until  it  has  reached  a  universal 
expression.  Every  movement  of  men  to  satisfy  the  religious 
yearning  has  been  a  vicarious  sacrifice  for  all  humanity,  in 
expressing  its  want  and  in  experimenting  with  means  for 
achieving  its  desire.  The  transfusion  of  religious  conceptions 
has  been  going  on  since  the  first  human  consciousness  of  awe 
and  fear.  We  need  not  argue  that  one  religion  is  the  product 
of  another,  but,  assuming  the  independent  origin  of  several 
families  of  religions,  there  has  been  progressive  modification  of 
religion  by  religion,  parallel  with  the  progress  of  intercourse 
between  peoples.  The  Buddhist  and  the  Jew,  the  Mussulman 
and  the  Christian,  each  has  a  different  actual  religion  today 
from  that  which  would  have  been  his  religion  if  the  other  faiths 
had  not  contributed  to  the  content  of  his  consciousness. 

In  other  words,  the  world  has  gone  on  realizing  what  was 
partially  but  fundamentally  expressed  by  St.  Paul  in  his 
famous  sociological  lectures  to  the  Roman  and  Corinthian 
Christians  (Rom.  12:4,  and  i  Cor.,  chap.  12).  He  may  not 
have  intended  to  carry  his  proposition,  "  We  are  members  one 
of  another,"  beyond  its  application  to  membership  in  Christian 
communities.  At  all  events,  the  truth  turns  out  to  be  as  broad 
as  the  most  liberal  interpretation  of  his  language  suggests.  As 
intercourse,  and  means  of  communication,  and  exchange  of 
goods  and  thoughts,  have  become  developed,  world-wide  com- 
munity has  become  more  intimate  and  obvious.  The  peculiar 
consequence  of  this  fact  today  is  that  there  are  no  local  ques- 
tions; every  social  problem  is  a  general  problem.  We  cannot 
make  wise  programs  without  adjusting  their  relations  with  the 
affairs  of  the  world.  There  are  no  social  solutions  which  do  not 
rest  upon  settled  relations  in  society  at  large. 

7.  Co-ordination  or  Correlation. —  Disregarding  its 
relationships  to  the  other  incidents  in  our  schedule,  and  con- 
sidering it  in  itself,  we  encounter  in  the  fact  of  co-ordination 
that  aspect  of  reality  which  has  thus  far  furnished  more 
material  to  political  economy  than  to  any  other  branch  of  soci- 
ology.   Indeed,  if  we  are  to  become  as  familiar  as  our  present 


S86  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

means  of  knowledge  make  possible  with  the  phenomena  thus 
designated,  economic  science  is  an  indispensable  interpreter. 
Not  even  in  political  science  is  the  fact  of  co-ordination  so 
minutely  analyzed.  Yet  we  are  left  with  a  partial  and  unbal- 
anced conception  of  human  associations,  on  the  whole,  if  we 
stop  with  knowledge  of  co-ordination  as  it  is  displayed  by  the 
industrial  or  the  civic  department  of  human  activities. 

Desire  to  avoid  the  extravagances  and  trivialities  of  the 
so-called  "  biological  sociologists "  has  caused  a  reaction 
among  cautious  students  of  society,  to  the  extent  that  they  are 
shy  about  employing  the  most  obvious  organic  metaphors  in 
reporting  the  more  general  facts  of  human  co-ordination.  We 
cannot  adequately  express  the  results  of  already  accomplished 
analysis  of  human  association,  however,  unless  we  take  advan- 
tage of  terms  filled  with  meaning  from  lower  orders  of 
co-ordination.  There  is  articulation  of  parts,  there  is  interla- 
cing of  structure,  there  is  intercommunication  of  persons  and  of 
products,  between  activities  that  proceed  within  an  association. 
All  this  complexity  is  due  to  various  correlating  principles,  the 
study  of  which  is  perhaps  both  the  "  immediate "  and  the 
"  paramount  "  task  of  sociology. 

We  are  observing  at  this  stage  merely  that  what  we  see  in 
other  aspects  of  associations  depends  upon  facts  of  another 
order,  which  are  distinguishable  in  thought  by  abstraction, 
whether  we  have  made  the  remaining  generalizations  or  not. 
These  facts  are  both  structural  and  functional.  The  whole  sys- 
tem by  which  communication  of  thought  and  influence  takes 
•  place  in  association  is  a  combination  of  material  and  spiritual 
devices,  which  gives  to  human  associations  a  coherence  and 
regularity  of  a  unique  sort.^'* 

Objective  description  of  this  incident  of  association  is  still 
an  unsatisfied  demand.  Attempts  to  accomplish  it  have  resulted 
in  much  clarifying  analysis,  along  with  vast  waste  of  energy  in 
debate  over  physiological  analogies.     Tn  the  absence  of  agree- 

^*  Vide  Small  and  Vincent,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Society,  pp.  215- 
36  and  237-66,  and  above,  chaps.  8,  9,  10. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  587 

ment  about  the  terms  in  which  the  fact  and  the  means  of 
co-ordination  in  association  shall  be  described,  one  is  liable  to 
irrelevant  and  confusing  criticism  when  using  the  readiest  and 
simplest  explanation.  Without  wishing  to  raise  any  of  the 
mooted  questions  about  the  terms  which  will  best  apply  to  the 
facts  here  in  view,  we  have  to  note  that  what  men  do  indus- 
trially, for  instance,  is  not  merely  conditioned  by  what  they  do 
artistically,  scientifically,  politically,  and  religiously;  but  it  is 
controlled  by  a  network  of  interrelations  that  are  a  part  of 
association.  Social  co-ordination  is  not  like  a  mechanical 
co-ordination  of  grains  of  sand  dumped  in  a  heap;  it  is  the 
operation  of  interacting  spiritual  energies  and  material  devices, 
as  consistent  and  constant  after  their  kind  as  the  principles  of 
military  tactics. 

We  see  the  fact  illustrated  in  different  degrees  in  the  case 
of  Chicago  industries  after  the  fire,  the  industries  of  the  south- 
ern states  after  the  war,  and  the  industries  of  France  after  the 
Revolution.  In  each  case,  both  the  form  and  the  volume  of  the 
industries  were  determined,  first  and  foremost,  by  immediate 
local  circumstances  and  by  essential  personal  wants.  They 
were  determined,  secondly,  by  larger  connections  extending  to 
the  whole  form  and  spirit  of  the  world-association  of  which 
these  groups  were  parts.  Thus  Chicago  could  not  start  afresh 
on  the  basis  of  communism  of  land,  for  the  laws  of  Illinois 
would  not  permit  it,  even  supposing  that  the  people  of  Chicago 
wanted  it.  Chicago  could  not  build  a  city  without  streets,  or 
depend  on  the  moon  for  light  at  night,  or  revert  to  the  house- 
hold system  of  industry,  because  the  whole  commercial  system, 
as  illustrated  forcibly,  for  instance,  in  the  insurance  factor, 
would  have  vetoed  such  irregularity. 

The  same  fact  of  traditional  and  contemporary  social  deter- 
mination of  activity  might  be  illustrated  at  length  in  the  other 
cases  just  named.  What  goes  on  among  associated  men  is 
partly  a  consequence  of  physical  conditions  which  are  primarily 
outside  the  category  "social."  It  is  partly  individual  action. 
It  is,  however,  in  great  part  a  function  also  of  the  association 


588  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

in  which  it  occurs.  Thus  our  economic  conduct  is  a  function 
of  the  domestic,  artistic,  scientific,  ethical,  poHtical,  legal,  and 
theological  order  and  tradition,  organized  in  the  association  of 
which  we  are  parts.  So  of  each  of  our  activities  in  turn ;  they 
are  all  functions  of  each  other.  The  means  by  which  this 
co-ordination  is  procured  are  both  natural  and  artificial.  They 
have  partly  gravitated  into  operation,  partly  come  to  have 
their  present  efficiency  by  voluntary  adaptation  of  devices 
invented  without  far-reaching  purpose,  and  partly  grown  out 
of  deliberate  intention  to  organize  association.  They  have 
been  expounded  in  part  by  Professor  Ross  in  his  notable  book, 
Social  Control.  The  single  fact  to  be  insisted  on  here  is  that 
hitman  associations  of  all  grades  are  contacts  of  individuals 
correlated  by  a  system  of  co-ordinating  agencies,  not  a  jumble 
of  individuals  free  to  transform  their  association  by  extempo- 
rary volition.  The  correlation  of  the  units  is  a  phase  of  associa- 
tion as  distinct  and  significant  as  any  incident  in  our  schedule. 


CHAPTER   XXXVII 

SOME   INCIDENTS   OF   THE    SOCIAL   PROCESS    (continued) 

I.  Individualization, —  In  dealing  with  this  schedule  of 
incidents,  our  method  is  to  state  and  illustrate  in  each  case  the 
fact  that  the  incident  exists,  not  to  enter  upon  discussion  of 
reasons  for  its  existence.  Upon  mention  of  the  present  detail 
there  is  at  once  provocation  to  join  issues  with  the  collectivistic 
or  the  individualistic  philosophy,  and  to  struggle  for  mastery 
in  the  name  of  one  of  these  conceptions.  That,  however,  would 
be  far  from  our  present  program.  Our  concern  in  this  analy- 
sis is  not  with  individualism  or  collectivism  as  an  idea,  but 
with  individualization  as  a  fact.  There  are  views  of  human 
association  which  make  it  the  same  sort  of  resultant  that  occurs 
when  the  fat  of  a  herd  of  swine  is  boiled  down  and  cooled  off 
as  a  mass  of  lard.  But  human  associations  are  not  homo- 
geneous masses ;  they  are  heterogeneous  collections.  Diversity 
of  individuals  is  no  less  actual  than  community  of  relation  of 
individuals  to  the  universal  conditions. 

Human  associations  are  invariably  composed  of  unlike 
individuals.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  ideal  monogamous  family, 
man  and  wife  are  one;  it  is  more  literally  and  evidently  true 
that,  whether  the  family  is  ideal  or  not,  man  and  wife  are  two. 
So  also  in  a  rising  scale  in  other,  more  complex  associations. 
We  are,  of  course,  repeating  a  commonplace,  with  the  modifica- 
tion that  it  is  not  commonplace.  We  shall  lay  further  empha- 
sis presently,  under  another  rubric,  upon  the  fact  that  indi- 
viduals are  different  and  remain  different.  The  specification 
upon  which  we  now  insist  is  rather  that  the  associated  state  is 
a  process  of  making  them  different.  Association  diversifies 
personalities.  It  puts  premiums  upon  special  developments. 
It  encourages  a  trait  in  one,  it  represses  a  trait  in  another.  It 
rewards  this  man's  performance,  it  penalizes  that  man's  pro- 

589 


590  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

pensity.  It  gives  more  scope  to  each  of  the  activities  normal 
to  all  individuals,  and  to  the  rare  activities  peculiar  to  excep- 
tional individuals. 

//  zve  take  the  genetic  view  of  the  social  process,  we  may 
describe  it  in  this  aspect  as  a  progressive  production  of  more 
and  more  dissimilar  men.  Each  change  in  the  social  situation 
affords  a  new  outlet  for  personal  idiosyncrasy,  and  presents 
new  incitements  to  variation  of  conduct  and  character.  The 
proverb  that  "  it  takes  all  sorts  of  people  to  make  a  world  "  is 
only  one  side  of  the  reality.  It  takes  a  zvorld  to  make  all  sorts 
of  people,  is  equally  true  of  the  same  reality.  The  limits  of  the 
possibilities  latent  in  people  will  not  be  discovered  until  the 
social  world  has  reached  the  limits  of  its  development.  The 
social  movement  takes  place  through  propagation  of  untold 
varieties  of  persons.  Production  of  personal  differentiations 
might  be  fixed  upon  as  an  approximate  expression  for  the 
whole  output  of  the  social  process.  Our  whole  schedule  is 
cumulative  warning  that  such  a  view  is  partial.  Human  asso- 
ciation is  a  process  made  up  of  processes,  of  which  the  present 
detail  is  a  sample,  each  of  which  seems  to  cover  the  whole 
range;  all  of  which  together,  however,  are  necessary  to  the 
completeness  of  each. 

2.  Socialization.^ — The  same  facts,  otherwise  viewed, 
yield  the  apparently  antithetical  proposition  that  association 
not  only  fits  the  units  into  accommodation  with  each  other, 
but  that  association  is  essentially  assimilation  of  the  individual 

*  "  The  setting  free,  in  the  modern  world,  of  the  activities  of  the  individual, 
as  against  all  the  absolutisms  that  would  otherwise  have  enthralled  them,  is, 
in  its  ultimate  meaning,  only  a  process  of  progress  towards  a  more  advanced 
and  complete  stage  of  social  subordination  than  has  ever  prevailed  in  the 
world  before.  All  the  steps  towards  a  free  conflict  of  forces  —  towards 
ecjuality  of  conditions,  of  rights,  and  of  opportunities,  and  towards  the  liberty 
and  freedom  of  the  individual  under  all  forms  —  are  simply  stages  of  progress 
in  an  increasing  process  of  social  subordination.  It  is  upon  none  of  these 
things,  regarded  by  themselves,  that  we  must  fix  attention  in  considering  the 
future.  It  is  upon  the  meaning  of  the  evolutionary  process  as  a  whole  that 
the  mind  must  continue  to  be  concentrated."  (Kidd,  Western  Civilication, 
p.  412.) 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  591 

life-process  to  the  social  life-process.  It  is  integration  of  the 
process  in  the  units  with  the  process  in  the  whole.  The  social 
process  is  the  fact  in  which  individuals,  on  the  one  hand, 
become  more  distinguishable  from  each  other ;  while  the  same 
individuals,  on  the  other  hand,  get  their  distinctive  individu- 
ality by  becoming  more  intimately  merged  into  each  other. 
Socialization  is,  accordingly,  not  in  opposition  to  individualiza- 
tion, except  in  words.  It  is  the  condition  and  the  means  of 
individualization,  and  vice  versa. 

An  analogy  may  possibly  indicate  the  truth  at  this  point 
better  than  literal  description :  When  the  prairie  schooner  is 
the  only  vehicle  owned  by  the  family,  the  social  activities  of 
the  family  are  rude  and  undeveloped.  Specialization  of  activity 
on  the  part  of  the  family  goes  on  pari  passu  with  more  highly 
individualized  means  of  travel  and  transportation.  When  the 
prairie  schooner  has  become  half  a  dozen  different  kinds  of 
farm  wagon,  and  half  a  dozen  different  sorts  of  conveyance 
for  persons,  each  of  the  dozen  vehicles  is  not  merely  different 
from  the  rest,  but  it  is  different  by  virtue  of  its  nicer  con- 
formity at  some  point  than  the  prairie  schooner  could  reach 
with  some  specific  detail  of  the  life-process  maintained  by  the 
family.  The  family  life  becomes  more  diversified  by  com- 
manding the  service  of  more  highly  specialized  implements. 
The  implements  are  more  highly  specialized  by  virtue  of  more 
intimate  and  exclusive  connection  with  the  whole  of  the 
family  life. 

The  case  is  similar  in  form  with  men.  If  a  young  man 
comes  from  the  farm  tO'  the  city,  he  may  bring  a  wealth  of 
invisible  social  qualifications ;  but  for  the  moment  they  are  not 
available,  because  they  are  not  sufficiently  individualized;  and 
they  are  not  individualized  because  they  are  not  socialized  in 
the  way  and  the  degree  suited  to  his  new  conditions.  The 
city  has  no  room  for  farmers,  but  it  has  abundant  work  for 
the  resources  that  accumulate  in  men  on  the  farm,  if  these 
resources  can  be  geared  to  the  proper  adjustments  for  which 
the  city  has  uses.     Presently  the  young  man  finds  a  place 


592  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

where  he  is  permitted  to  show  what  is  in  him.  He  learns  to 
do  new  work.  All  that  is  common  to  him  and  the  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men  of  whom  he  is  a  specimen  remains  as  before, 
but  the  specialist  begins  to  appear  in  him;  and  when  he  has 
reached  the  limit  of  his  opportunity,  or  of  his  power,  he  is  no 
longer  recognizable  as  a  child  of  the  soil.  He  is  the  manu- 
factured product  of  urban  conditions.  His  apparent  person- 
ality is  that  of  an  actor  almost  lost  to  view  on  the  world's 
stage;  but  if  it  is  closely  scrutinized,  it  appears  to  be  a  per- 
sonality formed  for  and  formed  by  some  minute  division  of  the 
city's  labor.  The  farmer  has  become  the  city  man,  not  alone 
by  virtue  of  changing  his  location ;  he  remains  the  farmer 
still,  until  he  specializes  his  individuality.  He  accomplishes 
this  change  by  adjusting  his  individuality  more  exactly  with 
some  minutiae  of  the  social  process.  Indeed,  objective  morality 
is  socialization.  The  unmoral  or  the  immoral  man  is  the 
social  unfit  or  misfit.  The  moral  man  is  the  man  so  nicely 
adjusted  to  the  social  conditions  that  the  life-process  proceeds 
within  and  by  means  of  him  zvith  relatively  high  precision. 
Association  may  again  be  described,  truly  but  partially,  as  the 
integration  of  distinct  individuals  into  the  common  process. 
3.  ViCARiousNESS. —  So  much  has  been  said,  during  the 
sociological  half-century  just  closing,  about  interdependence 
of  one  upon  another  in  society,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
present  this  constant  aspect  of  universal  social  conditions  in 
a  new  light.  The  theorem  to  be  emphasized,  however,  under 
this  title,  is  that  the  social  process,  as  we  find  it,  involves 
not  merely  constant  reactions  of  unit  upon  unit,  and  part 
upon  part,  but  beyond  that,  incessant  interchange  of  service 
between  the  associated  individuals  and  groups  that  thus  react 
upon  each  other.  The  social  process  cannot  continue  unless 
there  is  unimpeded  give-and-take  between  the  elements.  With 
the  reservation,  as  before,  that  it  is  the  expression  of  an 
element  temporarily  viewed  as  the  whole,  we  may  express  the 
fact  even  more  strongly.  Since  the  condition  here  alleged  is 
posited  as  general  and  universal,  we  may  formulate  all  the 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  593 

reality  of  which  it  is  a  condition  in  terms  of  the  condition 
itself.  Thus :  The  social  fact  is  perpetual  vicariousness. 
When  the  amount  of  vicarious  action  is  small,  the  social 
process  is  embryonic;  there  is  merely  the  dormant  potency 
of  society ;  association  is  realized  only  in  a  minimum  degree. 
When  vicarious  action  is  interrupted  or  disordered,  associa- 
tion by  so  much  ceases,  or  becomes  negative  (antipathetic). 
As  vicarious  action  diversifies  itself,  the  social  process  corre- 
spondingly evolves. 

Again,  this  being  the  case,  it  would  be  possible  to  rewrite 
history  in  terms  of  this  condition,  and  the  version  would  be 
much  truer  than  many  of  the  pretentious  attempts  to  read 
the  deepest  lessons  of  human  experience.  The  career  of 
human  industries  is  merely  the  story  of  one  man  learning  to 
do  something  which  makes  it  possible  for  another  to  do  some- 
thing else,  and  for  each  to  get  some  of  the  results  of  the  w^ork 
of  both.  Differentiation  of  the  non-industrial  pursuits  and 
classes  —  warriors,  rulers,  artists,  priests,  scientists  —  is 
merely  a  higher  elaboration  of  this  economy  of  reciprocity. 
No  human  vocation  has  existed  as  a  tolerated  institution,  with- 
out apparent  justification  in  its  supposed  utility  to  others 
besides  those  who  pursue  the  vocation. 

There  is  no  clearer  illustration  of  this  than  in  the  recipro- 
cal feudal  incidents  of  "commendation"  and  "protection." 
The  feudal  relation  was  a  balancing  of  services,  and  was  mutu- 
ally advantageous  so  long  as  the  exchange  was  real  and  pro- 
portional. Revolutions  haye  been  upheavals  due  to  interrup- 
tion of  the  vicarious  function,  or  to  tardy  or  premature  belief 
that  the  function  was  arrested.  At  one  point  there  has  been 
excess  of  advantage;  at  another  point,  defect  of  advantage. 
The  exchange  process  that  would  normally  equalize  levels  of 
advantage  has  been  somehow  clogged,  and  the  consequence 
has  been  that  normal  human  interests  have  asserted  them- 
selves by  breaking  through  an  abnormal  order.  We  should 
have  a  juster  account  than  has  ever  been  rendered  of  every 
episode  in  history,  if  we  could  get  a  correct  answer  in  each 


594  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

case  to  the  question :  Who  performed  or  shirked  the  vica- 
rious function  called  for  at  that  point? 

When  we  approach  the  problem  of  present  society,  we 
must  sooner  or  later  confront  the  question  of  the  state  of 
vicariousness  in  our  society,  namely :  Who  depends  upon 
zvhom  for  zvhat  service,  in  order  that  the  interests  represented 
by  the  members  of  present  society  may  be  satisfied^  Is  the 
responsibility  discharged  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  successf 
These  questions  propose  the  inevitable  test  of  our  present 
social  aims,  and  of  the  structure  of  society  by  which  we  are 
trying  to  reach  those  aims.  Who  fails  in  performing  what 
service?  is  the  question  which  calls  for  exhibit  of  the  whole 
social  unbalance,  whether  in  judgment  of  past  or  present 
society.^ 

The  world  is  not  a  gift  enterprise;  it  is  not  constructed 
on  the  free-lunch  plan.  The  world  owes  nobody  a  living. 
It  is  true  that  no  one  can  earn  the  kind  of  living  that  all 
civilized  men  want  today,  because  the  best  of  us  have  to  be 
pensioners  on  the  past  to  an  extent  which  no  one  can  com- 
pensate. The  most  skilful  "  architect  of  his  own  fortune  "  in 
spite  of  himself  comes  into  the  greater  part  of  his  fortune 
by  inheritance  from  other  men.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
true  that,  as  against  the  other  persons  of  his  own  generation, 
nobody  has  any  socially  valid  claim  to  good  things,  except  in 
proportion  to  the  utility  which  his  personal  service  in  the 
world  bears  to  the  service  performed  by  all  other  men.  Wher- 
ever this  proportion  is  disarranged,  there  is  in  some  way  a 
disturbance  of  normal  vicarious  relations. 

Accordingly,  we  may  say  of  the  present  as  of  the  past : 
It  may  be  formulated  in  terms  of  vicariousness.  The  present 
social  order  is  normal  and  permanent  to  the  degree  in  which 
it  secures  natural  vicarious  interaction  between  all  the  asso- 
ciated persons.  Present  social  order  is  provisional  and  inse- 
cure in  proportion  to  its  toleration  of  partial  reciprocity,  or 
repudiation  of  the  dues  of  vicariousness,  on  the  part  of  any 

'  Cf.  above,  p.  148. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  595 

of  the  associated  persons.  Thus  the  labor  problem,  the  cur- 
rency problem,  the  tariff  problem,  the  civil-service  problem, 
the  expansion  problem,  the  liquor  problem,  the  social-evil 
problem,  the  re\'enue  problem,  the  trust  problem,  and  so  on 
through  the  whole  list —  each  may  be  analyzed  in  terms  of 
partially  realized  vicariousness.  In  so  far  as  reciprocity  is 
approximately  normal,  we  have  corresponding  social  equilib- 
rium. In  so  far  as  a  false  balance  of  reciprocity  is  involved 
in  social  programs,  there  is  unstable  equilibrium.  While  this 
is  merely,  in  the  first  instance,  another  of  our  technical  abstrac- 
tions, it  is  at  the  same  time  a  category  w'ithout  the  aid  of 
which  there  can  be  no  adequate  penetration  into  the  essential 
social  situation  in  its  most  practical  aspects. 

4.  Persistence  of  the  Individuals. —  The  fact  to  which 
w^e  now  refer  may  be  symbolized  by  what  goes  on  in  a  mix- 
ture of  chemical  elements.  Let  us  suppose  a  case  of  a  mixture 
containing  five  or  more  elements.  The  volumes  of  the  ele- 
ments are  in  various  proportions.  One  of  the  elements  is 
present  in  such  small  quantities  that  it  may  be  discoverable 
only  after  the  last  refinement  of  analysis.  Yet  when  that 
obscure  element  is  found,  it  is  itself;  it  exercises  its  own 
reaction;  it  is  not  forced  to  abdicate  its  peculiarity;  it  is 
equal  with  each  of  the  other  elements  in  reacting  wath  each 
of  its  own  essential  properties  at  their  actual  value  w^ithin 
the  mixture.  Hydrogen  and  oxygen  have  the  same  affinities 
wdien  immersed  in  nitrogen  as  when  they  are  undisturbed  by 
a  third  party.  In  a  mixture  of  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  nitro- 
gen with  other  elements,  each  retains  its  proportional  force 
and  its  own  peculiarities,  subject  only  to  the  preponderating 
force  and  quality  of  the  other  constituents  of  the  mixture. 
Oxygen  does  not  become  nitrogen,  though  it  may  be  lost  in 
the  volume  of  nitrogen.  Hydrogen  does  not  become  chlorine, 
though  in  almost  pure  nitrogen  it  may  be  unable  to  join  with 
enough  oxygen  to  distinguish  itself  from  chlorine  in  its  rela- 
tion to  combustion.  Such  force  and  value  as  each  element 
has,   however,   it   retains  in  the  mixture,   and  whenever  the 


596  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

conditions  of  the  mixture  are  such  that  the  several  elements 
are  called  to  show  themselves,  the  known  characteristics  of 
all  alike  reappear.  There  is  similar  permanency  of  character, 
or  similar  retention  of  identity,  even  when  that  identity  is 
concealed  in  the  mass  of  other  elements.  In  the  social  process, 
under  normal  conditions,  the  state  of  the  individual  is  analo- 
gous with  that  of  portions  of  matter  in  a  mechanical  mixture, 
rather  than  with  atoms  of  the  same  element  in  a  chemical  com- 
pound. 

In  the  social  reality  we  have  discovered  the  like  interest 
of  all  individuals  in  the  means  of  satisfaction  symbolized  by 
the  terms  health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  beauty,  Tight- 
ness. We  do  not  find  that  persons  have  equal  intensity  of 
desire  for  these  satisfactions,  nor  that  the  distribution  of  these 
desires  is  uniform,  nor  that  they  present  to  themselves  the  same 
specific  objects  or  experiences  as  satisfactions  of  the  desires. 
What  we  do  find  is  that  when  any  man  or  class  of  men  arrives 
at  the  stage  of  development  at  which  these  desires,  any  or 
all,  emerge,  the  individuality  of  the  man  or  the  class  is  like 
the  individuality  of  every  other  man  or  class  in  demanding  the 
object  of  desire  as  the  satisfaction  of  want. 

Brief  inspection  of  this  detail  leads  to  the  suspicion  that, 
though  its  universality  in  observable  associations  is  no  less 
demonstrable  than  that  of  the  other  incidents  in  our  schedule, 
it  is  nevertheless  an  incident  of  a  different  order  from  most 
of  those  of  which  we  have  spoken.  However  this  may  be,  we 
are  at  present  able  to  make  out  the  reality  of  this  incident 
rather  as  a  statical  principle,  as  a  condition  of  equihbrium  in  a 
relatively  developed  association,  than  as  a  fully  actualized 
condition  in  all  associations.  Perhaps  we  have  here  a  clue 
to  the  consummation  foreshadowed  in  the  mystical  term 
"equality."  Major  Powell  finds  the  essence  of  the  equality 
that  is  indicated  as  a  condition  of  a  stable  civic  situation,  in 
"  Equality  of  voice  or  vote  in  the  council  ....  The  law  of 
equality   in  demotic  bodies   is  the   law  of  equality  to  assert 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  597 

judgments."^  We  would  extend  the  concept  somewhat.  We 
would  say  that  individuality  has  normal  scope  in  an  associa- 
tion only  when  each  individual  is  the  equal  of  every  other  indi- 
vidual in  liberty  to  find  expression  for  his  whole  personality. 
Stable  equilibrium,  the  permanence  of  order,  is  secured  in  pro- 
portion as  each  man's  consciousness  of  interest  is  on  an 
equality  with  each  other  man's  consciousness  of  interest  in 
freedom  from  arbitrary  restraints  upon  attempts  to  get  satis- 
faction. The  semblance  or  degree  of  order  in  a  society  depends 
upon  the  approximation  of  that  society  to  the  practical  realiza- 
tion of  this  equality.  In  other  words,  social  order  rests  upon 
the  feeling  among  members  of  the  society  that  they  enjoy 
approximate  equality  of  freedom  to  realize  each  his  own  indi- 
viduality. The  condition  of  equality,  and  likewise  the  order 
of  society,  is  disturbed  when  consciousness  of  interest  in  any 
one  class  is  permitted  to  suppress  the  like  interest  of  another 
class. 

For  instance,  the  priestly  conception  of  religion  as  mani- 
fested in  the  theory  represented  by  Gregory  VII  and  Innocent 
III  put  a  fantastic  fiction  of  religious  authority,  residing  in 
one  class  of  men,  in  place  of  the  inborn  religious  need  of  all 
men,  and  the  indicated  equality  of  all  men  in  adjusting  them- 
selves to  that  need.  So  long  as  men  do  not  actually  recognize 
their  religious  needs,  but  take  them  on  credit  from  others, 
hierarchical  suppression  of  religion  in  the  laity  is  possible; 
but  so  soon  as  the  religious  interest  begins  to  become  conscious 
and  reflective  in  the  laity,  then  the  imposition  of  priestly 
authority  becomes  such  a  violation  of  equality  that  the  pre- 
vailing order  is  presently  overthrown. 

The  same  formula  expresses  what  takes  place  in  the  realm 
of  the  sociability-desires,  w^hen  the  governing  class  fails  to 
perceive  that  political  consciousness  has  dawned  in  the  gov- 
erned classes,  and  that  the  desire  of  self-determination  has 
emerged  in  opposition  to  the  desire  of  the  rulers  to  be  masters. 
When  the  policy,   if  not  the  spoken  words,   of  Louis   XIV 

'American  Anthropologist,  July,   1899,  pp.  498,  499. 


598  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

said,  "L'etat,  c'est  moi/'  the  social  or  political  existence  of 
Frenchmen  outside  the  administration  was  by  implication 
denied.  The  peasant  in  the  Vendee  and  the  sans-culottc  in 
Paris  had  not  the  knowledge  of  statecraft  that  the  king  pos- 
sessed, but  each  was  beginning  to  feel  himself  a  political  per- 
son. A  century  later  each  thought  himself  a  political  person 
in  the  same  class  with  the  king;  and  perhaps  he  was.  At 
all  events,  the  dogma  of  his  political  nonentity  was  the  spark 
in  the  explosive  sense  of  equality.  The  reaction  shattered  the 
artificial  order  which  the  dogma  had  made  precarious  for 
generations.  Men  actually  have  social  interests.  When  these 
interests  come  to  consciousness  in  political  desires,  they  are 
real  forces  in  the  world  as  much  as  the  affinities  of  chemical 
elements.  They  are  not  to  be  read  out  of  the  ranks  of  recog- 
nized forces  without  consequences  as  fatal  to  order  as  those 
which  occur  in  the  laboratory  when  the  properties  of  chemical 
elements  are  ignored. 

Still  again,  in  the  realm  of  the  wealth-interests,  each  man 
is  a  potential  economist.  Each  man  has  not  only  wealth- 
interests  and  wealth-desires,  but  economic  ideas.  When  class- 
consciousness  becomes  definite,  as  in  modern  groups  of  wage- 
earners,  the  ideas  of  the  group  may  be  crude  and  unwise,  but 
they  exist;  they  are  the  ideas  of  persons  desiring  to  count 
as  persons,  and  actually  counting  as  persons,  in  the  social 
reaction,  just  as  surely  as  other  persons  count  whose  ideas  are 
more  mature.  Social  order  involves  accommodation  of  all 
other  factors  to  this  factor  of  the  workingman's  individual 
and  class-consciousness.  If  other  social  elements  presume  to 
push  the  workingman  back  into  the  status  of  constructive 
infancy;  if  the  attempt  is  made  to  place  the  workingman 
under  the  tutoring  or  governoring  of  other  industrial  classes; 
if  it  is  assumed  that  the  workingman  docs  not  know  what 
makes  for  his  own  good,  and  should,  therefore,  be  restrained 
from  manifesting  his  own  feelings  about  what  is  for  his  good, 
and  should  be  compelled  to  accept,  as  a  substitute  for  his  own 
thoughts  and  feelings,  the  thoughts  and  feelings  which  other 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  599 

classes  want  him  to  have —  personal  persistence  is  ignored 
and  vetoed,  equality  is  denied,  and  order  is  endangered. 

It  is  extremely  difficult  to  discuss  this  incident  "persist- 
ence," with  its  corollary  "equality,"  without  confusing  it  with 
the  condition  scheduled  next  in  order.  The  two  abstractions, 
though  necessarily  so  intimately  associated,  must,  however,  be 
kept  apart  for  purposes  of  clear  thinking,  even  if  the  process 
of  keeping  them  apart  is  somewhat  arbitrary.  The  equal 
freedom  of  every  man  to  be  himself,  such  as  he  is,  must  be 
regarded  not  merely  as  a  specification  of  ideal  order;  it  must 
be  recognized  as  in  some  degree  a  postulate  of  all  order,  and 
an  incipient  element  of  all  order.  The  fatalism  of  India,  the 
acquiescence  in  the  decrees  of  caste,  the  calm  assumption  of 
superiority  by  the  brahmin,  and- the  equally  unruffled  accept- 
ance of  inferiority  by  sudrah  or  pariah  —  each  expresses  a 
certain  legal-tender  conception  of  valuation.  Castes  visualize 
the  class-consciousness  of  their  members,  and  the  system 
approximately  represents  the  judgments  of  personal  valuation 
in  the  people  as  a  whole.  The  same  psychological  phenomenon 
appears  in  the  United  States  in  the  popular  fiction  that  each 
man  is  a  sovereign.  So  long  as  each  man  believes  that  he 
is  exercising  his  sovereignty,  this  appraisal  of  individuality 
is  compatible  with  the  existence  of  a  social  order  which  actually 
nullifies  the  appraisal.  Wherever  men  begin  to  believe  that 
the  social  order  actually  deprives  them  of  equal  privilege  to 
be  themselves,  at  that  time  and  place  social  stability  and 
equilibrium  are  forthwith  in  danger. 

Accordingly,  as  in  the  case  of  each  condition  in  our  sched- 
ule, we  have  in  this  specification  a  test  of  all  past  and  present 
societies.  That  flash  of  precocity  which  we  call  Hellenic  cul- 
ture, for  instance,  begins  to  be  more  accountable  when  we 
consider  that  it  was  the  concentration  of  excellence  of  a  frag^ 
mentary  sort  in  a  fraction  of  the  people,  while  the  mass  of  the 
people  merely  furnished  material  support  for  its  premature 
and  disproportionate  development.  On  the  other  hand, 
Russian  nihilism,  German  socialism,  French  and  Italian  anar- 


€oo  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

chism,  and  English  and  American  trade-unionism,  are  symp- 
toms of  dawning  mass-consciousness,  often  proceeding  to 
senseless  extremes  in  demands  for  deferred  payments  of  the 
dues  of  partially  comprehended  equality. 

Neither  social  philosophy  nor  social  practice  is  yet  able 
to  take  this  fact  of  persistence  of  individuals  for  granted, 
and  to  make  consistent  use  of  it.  Human  associations  are 
collections  of  individuals  with  certain  common  traits,  but  with 
different  and  differentiating  forms  and  intensities  and  combi- 
nations of  these  traits.  Human  associations  are,  accordingly, 
different  sorts  of  adjustments  accomplished  between  indi- 
viduals who  always  remain  diverse,  no  matter  how  intimate 
the  adjustment. 

It  is  possible  for  an  apparently  individualistic  philosophy  to 
ignore  this  incident,  although  that  provincialism  is  more  char- 
acteristic of  collectivistic  philosophies.  When  we  bring  the 
concept  "  society "  to  the  front,  the  individualist  is  likely  to 
challenge  us  with  the  claim  that  " '  society '  is  only  a  mental 
image ;  '  society '  is  merely  a  conception.  The  individual 
alone  exists."  This  apparently  innocent  dogma  sometimes 
means,  however,  a  conceptual  ism  quite  as  artificial  as  that 
which  it  challenges.  It  has  to  be  brought  down  to  reality 
by  the  perception  that  "  the  individual "  is  only  a  mental 
image;  "the  individual'*  is  merely  a  conception.  Individuals 
alone  exist.  Human  societies  are  diversified  adjustments  of 
unlike  individuals.  The  play  of  individuality  is  as  constant 
among  them  as  the  play  of  cosmic  law. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  other  incidents  of  association,  this 
element  in  the  situation  is  both  fact  and  force;  it  is  both 
reality  and  tendency.  It  in  turn  furnishes,  first,  its  own 
material  for  study,  in  the  analytical  stages  of  the  sociological 
process,  and  it  presents  a  problem  of  accommodation  in  the 
telic  division  of  social  or  sociological  activity. 

The  sociological  theory  of  Gumplowicz  reads  the  indi- 
vidual out  of  the  list  of  meaning  terms  in  the  societary  equa- 
tion.    His  thesis  is  that  the  individual  is  so  assimilated  by  the 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  6oi 

group  as  to  be  no  longer  significant;  and  the  social  process  is 
consequently  a  process  of  the  determination  of  resultants 
between  conflicting  group-energies.  His  mistake  is  one  of 
the  most  familiar  in  all  discursive  thinking.  He  generalizes 
a  single  factor  into  the  place  of  all  factors.  The  "group- 
individuality,"  as  Ratzenhofer  phrases  it,  is  a  real  and  mighty 
force  in  the  social  reaction,  but  it  is  impossible  to  find  an  asso- 
ciation in  which  the  individuality  of  the  members  is  an  entirely 
negligible  quantity.  Even  in  such  an  artificial  and  abnormal 
association  as  that  of  a  body  of  prisoners  in  a  penitentiary, 
among  whom  the  power  of  individual  initiative  is  reduced 
close  to  the  minimum,  the  reaction  of  the  group  upon  the  offi- 
cials and  upon  the  outside  world  often  betrays  the  peculiar 
quality  of  some  individuals.  In  normal  associations,  larger 
or  smaller,  conventionality  is  no  more  actual  than  heightened 
individuality. 

In  this  connection  we  have  then  one  of  the  groups  of 
marks  of  a  stable  or  unstable  association,  of  greater  or  less 
permanence  in  the  social  order,  of  a  healthy  or  unhealthy 
state  in  its  organization.  We  have  discovered  as  yet  no  abso- 
lute ratio  between  the  elements  of  individuality  and  of  col- 
lectivity in  associations.  It  is  not  a  part  of  the  present  argu- 
ment to  propose  a  theorem  to  establish  such  a  ratio.  In  this 
primary  division  of  our  subject,  we  have  merely  to  register 
the  observation  that  just  as  interdependence  and  community 
are  general  facts  of  associations,  so  the  persistence,  the  dif- 
ferentiation, the  accentuation  of  the  separateness  and  variety 
of  individuals  are  also  universal  in  associations.  Those  asso- 
ciations in  which  individuality  is  least  encouraged,  such  as  the 
army,  are  merely  functional  devices  that  serve  certain  purposes 
of  larger  associations  of  which  they  are  organs.  They  do 
not  monopolize  the  life  of  the  individuals  in  their  member- 
ship. On  the  other  hand,  all  schemes  of  society  and  human 
life  are  evidently  passed  upon  by  the  world's  ultimate  tri- 
bunal, experience,  according  as  they  furnish  scope  for  the 
elemental  and  final  factor,  the  individual.     The  incident  of 


6q2  general  sociology 

the  persistence  of  individuals  in  association  is  accordingly  an 
element  never  to  be  eliminated  from  formulas  of  societary 
reactions. 

5.  Justice. —  It  may  be  impossible  to  give  so  clear  an 
account  of  this  incident  that  its  distinctness  from  the  fore- 
going will  be  apparent;  but  the  following  is  a  first  step  toward 
that  end:  Equality,  as  zve  used  the  term  under  the  last  head, 
is  a  concept  of  absolute  values.  Justice  is  a  concept  of  pro- 
portion among  absolutes,  or,  to  be  more  exact,  among  values 
previously  treated  by  abstraction  as  absolute.  Crusoe  and 
Friday  are  equal  in  actuality  of  conscious  interests.  Both 
want  to  live,  to  eat,  to  keep  warm,  to  sleep,  to  escape  pain,  to 
rejoin  kinsmen,  to  satisfy  curiosity,  and  to  profit  by  each 
other's  co-operation.  They  are  unequal  in  diversity  of  desires, 
and  in  perception  of  means  likely  to  satisfy  them.  It  would 
be  a  violation  of  the  condition  of  equality  on  Crusoe's  part, 
if  he  should  wantonly  inflict  bodily  pain  on  Friday.  It  would 
also  violate  justice,  but  not  for  the  same  reason.  It  would  be 
no  violation  of  the  condition  of  equality,  if  Crusoe  inflicted 
enough  bodily  pain  on  Friday  to  compel  him  to  do  his  share 
in  defending  both  against  enemies.  On  the  contrary,  if 
Friday  persisted  in  wasting  the  supply  of  gunpowder  for  the 
sake  of  amusement,  while  Crusoe's  prudence  foresaw  that 
Friday's  amusement  would  cost  both  their  lives,  justice  would 
demand  an  equation  of  desires.  Without  denying  to  Friday 
the  right  to  be  Friday,  to  think  Friday's  thoughts,  to  want 
Friday's  wants,  Crusoe  may  assert  his  right  to  be  Crusoe,  to 
think  Crusoe's  thoughts,  to  want  Crusoe's  wants.  So  far 
equality  is  satisfied.  But  if  there  comes  to  be  a  conflict  of 
thought  and  of  want  between  Crusoe  and  Friday,  it  at  once 
appears  that  there  are  relativities  among  interests  and  among 
conceptions  of  ways  to  satisfy  interests.  It  appears  also  that 
there  are  dependencies  l)etween  Crusoe  and  Friday.  Fach  not 
only  needs  the  other,  but  each  may  so  act  as  to  sacrifice  the 
other's  welfare  entirely. 

Assuming,  then,  an  "absolute"  value  in  each  contending 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  603 

person,  how  shall  the  conflict  be  reconciled?  The  equation 
between  persons,  so  as  to  respect  their  equality  of  right  to  be 
persons,  so  as  to  adjust  the  proportionality  of  their  individual 
desires,  is  justice.  In  other  words,  justice  is  the  condition  in 
zvliich  there  is  a  balanced  proportion  between  the  interests  of 
different  persons  zvho  are  equally  entitled  to  the  possession  of 
interests.  Equality  is  a  conception  corresponding  to  each  one's 
right  to  be  himself.  Justice  is  a  conception  corresponding 
to  each  one's  duty  to  be  no  more  than  himself.  Equality 
is  a  concept  of  individualization;  justice  is  a  concept  of 
co-ordination. 

In  this  light  the  formula  of  justice,  or  of  "equal  freedom," 
which  Spencer  so  egregiously  overworked,  is  available, 
namely:  "Every  man  is  free  to  do  that  zvhich  he  zvills,  pro- 
vided he  infringes  not  the  equal  freedom  of  any  other  man."  * 
Taken  together  with  our  formula  of  equality,  this  formula 
of  freedom  or  justice  would  not  require  the  author's  subse- 
quent explanation  that  it  does  not  permit  policies  of  perpetual 
aggressiveness  on  the  rights  of  others,  provided  the  others  are 
free  to  resent  in  kind.  A  part  of  individuality  is  initiative, 
self-choice  of  the  direction  which  the  activities  of  self  shall 
take.  Aggression  violates  equality,  whether  it  violates  justice 
or  not,  because  it  takes  away  from  the  man  who  wants  to  be 
peaceable  the  privilege  of  choosing  to  be  peaceable,  and  com- 
pels him  to  repel  aggression.  Even  if  he  proves  better  able 
than  the  aggressor  to  maintain  himself,  he  has  meanwhile 
been  deprived  of  the  use  of  his  right  of  choice  by  the  aggres- 
sion. That  is,  the  condition  of  equality  has  been  disturbed. 
We  might  add,  therefore,  to  Spencer's  formula  of  justice, 
"  provided  also  that  he  infringes  not  the  equality  of  any  other 
man." 

Whatever  be  the  content  which  our  theories  put  into  the 
term  ''justice,"  some  vague  valuation  of  the  term  is  a  too 
common  element  of  all  social  theory  to  need  vindication  in  this 
connection.      However   questionable   any   other   term   in   our 

*  Ethics,  Vol.  II,  p.  46. 


6o4  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

schedule  of  incidents  may  be,  a  dispute  about  the  term  "jus- 
tice "  as  a  necessary  condition  of  stable  social  order  could  at 
this  late  date  scarcely  be  provoked.  All  social  order  has 
presumed  that  justice  is  behind  and  beneath  the  laws  defend- 
ing and  the  sanctions  sustaining  the  order.  All  questions  of 
social  institutions  have  been  heralded  in  terms  of  justice  vio- 
lated and  justice  demanded.  All  disintegration  and  reintegra- 
tion of  societies  may  be  described  in  terms  of  less  and  greater 
approximation  to  justice.  The  patria  pot  est  as  at  the  basis 
of  Roman  law  was  the  expression  of  the  Roman  sense  of  just 
balance  and  proportion  between  the  paterfamilias  and  the 
members  of  his  household.  The  gradual  limitation  in  practice 
of  the  right  thus  recognized  in  theory,  and  then  the  elimination 
of  certain  elements  of  the  patria  potestas  from  other  codes, 
illustrate  the  same  prevalence  of  the  sentiment  of  justice  on 
the  one  hand,  together  with  the  companion  fact  of  change  in 
the  idea  of  justice  on  the  other  hand.  The  mediaeval  con- 
tract between  lord  and  vassal,  ratifying  and  including  sub- 
contracts between  vassal  and  minor  vassal,  and  then  the  status 
outside  of  and  beneath  contract  forced  upon  the  non-feudal 
masses,  were  in  the  same  sense  theorems  of  justice.  They 
represented  the  estimate  of  proportion  between  interests  and 
classes  of  persons  that  the  mediaeval  intellect  had  been  able  to 
form.  The  English  system  of  primogeniture  and  entail,  as 
contrasted  with  the  French  system  of  division  of  estates,  is 
an  exhibit  again  of  justice  in  unlike  forms,  as  it  is  conceived 
in  two  neighboring  societies. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  all  our  contemporary  social 
problems  may  be  stated  in  terms  of  justice.  Not  only  is  this 
true  as  an  academic  proposition,  but  it  is  further  true  that  all 
our  social  problems  are  arraignments  l)Oth  of  our  abstract 
ideas  of  justice  and  of  the  social  order  which  is  supposed  to 
embody  justice.  We  have  social  i)roblems  because  the  con- 
ditions of  order  and  progress  are  partially  unsatisfied.  This 
must  be  reiterated  at  every  step,  lest  we  seem,  in  dealing  with 
one  of  the  conditions  of  order,  to  forget  that  there  are  other 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  605 

equally  essential  conditions  of  order.  Reserving  for  this  quali- 
fication full  force,  we  may  maintain  that  every  system  of  cus- 
toms and  laws  by  which  the  social  order  is  controlled  is  a  pro- 
visional theorem  of  justice.  It  formulates  at  least  a  sort  of 
rule-of-thumb  standard  of  justice.  It  is  an  hypothesis  of  jus- 
tice. Experience  tests  the  correctness  of  the  hypothesis.  If  the 
assumption  is  measurably  close  to  the  reality,  the  customs  and 
the  laws  remain  elements  of  order.  If  the  assumption  is  wide 
of  the  reality,  the  customs  and  the  laws  presently  prove  to  be 
factors  of  disorder.  These  general  propositions  are  not 
affected  in  principle  by  the  fact  that  changes  of  circumstances, 
rather  than  original  misconception  of  justice,  may  produce 
incongruity  between  regulative  customs  and  laws  and  the 
interests  w^hich  they  essay  to  control.  Nobody  can  foresee 
all  the  shiftings  of  advantage  and  disadvantage  which  a  given 
legal  rule  may  permit  or  promote.  Its  purpose  may  be  just; 
its  immediate  effects  may  be  just;  its  remote  effects  may 
be  unjust. 

For  instance,  the  present  Illinois  law  of  workmen's  liens 
is  prima  facie  calculated  to  protect  the  weak  against  the 
strong.  "  The  law  provides  that  all  debts  or  claims  for 
materials  furnished  or  labor  expended  shall  constitute  a  lien 
on  the  ownership  of  the  land,  a  lien  on  the  fee.  If  a  workman 
has  a  claim  for  services,  or  a  steel  manufacturer  a  claim  for 
material  provided,  he  has  a  right  upon  the  fee  itself,  and  not 
merely  as  against  the  contractor  who  .employed  him  or  who 
used  his  steel."  ^  The  effect  of  the  law  is  said  to  have  been, 
among  other  things,  to  throw  a  large  part  of  the  building  busi- 
ness in  Chicago  into  the  hands  of  irresponsible  contractors,  and 
this  fact  doubtless  has  had  much  to  do  with  disorders  in  the 
building  trades,  involving  many  sorts  of  injustice  to  many 
classes  of  people. 

In  contemplating  a  society  writhing  in  disorder  to  break 
the  fetters  of  the  constraining  order,  one  of  the  lenses  through 
which  we  must  look  is  furnished,  then,  by  the  idea  of  justice. 

'  Henry  Ives  Cobb,  in  Chicago  Times-Herald,  November  20,  1899. 


6o6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

If  we  attempt  to  understand  the  disorder  as  a  theory  and  a 
feehng  in  men's  minds,  then  our  task  is  to  make  out  what 
objective  facts  fail  to  correspond  with  the  standards  of  justice 
which  the  men  in  question  entertain.  If  we  attempt  to  under- 
stand the  disorder  as  a  somewhat  unconscious  outburst  of  the 
social  forces,  as  a  natural,  but  not  necessarily  as  a  deliberate, 
phenomenon,  then  our  task  is  to  find  objective  disarrange- 
ments of  justice.  And  in  this  case,  of  course,  our  own  stand- 
ard of  justice  has  to  serve  as  a  temporary  criterion.  In  all 
cases  the  incident  that  we  term  justice  is  a  tendency,  a  gravi- 
tation, an  outcropping  of  persistent  moral  quality,  the  full 
force  of  which  has  yet  to  appear. 

6.  Security. —  It  is  one  of  the  boasts  of  popular  social 
science  that  we  have  passed  the  stage  of  status  and  have 
entered  upon  the  stage  of  contract.  The  fact  referred  to  is 
substantially  that  we  no  longer  doom  a  man  to  stay  in  the 
social  rank,  or  the  economic  vocation,  or  the  political  class  of 
his  parents.  A  man  is  not  foreordained  from  birth,  by  the 
mere  accident  of  birth,  to  a  certain  artificial  rating  in  the 
social  order.  We  have  broken  from  these  arbitrary  designa- 
tions, and  a  man  may  place  himself,  by  voluntary  disposal  of 
himself,  wherever  his  merits  entitle  him  to  belong.  There  is 
freedom  to  contract  without  conventional  veto  of  the  con- 
tract. The  landless  man  may  become  a  landlord,  if  he  can 
work  and  save  and  find  a  landowner  who  prefers  dollars  to 
acres.  The  peasant,  the  Catholic,  the  Protestant,  the  Jew, 
may  become  a  civil  or  military  officer,  a  lawyer,  a  teacher,  a 
preacher,  a  banker,  an  editor,  if  he  can  gain  the  necessary 
personal  qualifications.  No  social  ban  now  vetoes  his  efforts 
toward  change  of  status.  This  is  in  itself  something  to  be 
very  highly  esteemed.  It  is  an  immeasurable  social  gain. 
But  it  is  not  an  unqualified  gain,  and  it  is  not  a  gain  that  is 
indicated  with  perfect  accuracy  in  the  popular  antithesis 
between  status  and  contract. 

The  rejoicings  of  theorists  over  abandonment  of  the 
regime  of  status  have  tended  to  fix  the  impression  that  status 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  607 

itself  is  an  unsocial  and  inequitable  element  in  human  condi- 
tions. The  fact  is  that,  while  fixity  of  status  is  a  violation  of 
certain  essential  conditions,  security  of  status  is  in  turn  itself 
one  of  those  essential  conditions.  We  cannot  think  human 
associations  without  the  category  of  status,  although  human 
associations  are  in  constant  movement,  and  status  is  thus  a 
moving  equilibrium  at  most;  yet  in  actual  associations  certain 
precision  of  status  among  the  members  is  universal.  If  it 
should  be  eliminated  in  any  case,  there  would  at  once  be  con- 
fusion and  danger,  if  not  anarchy.  The  social  end  is  not 
abolition  of  status,  but,  first,  security  of  status,  and,  second, 
flexibility  or  exchangeability  of  status. 

Comte,  Le  Play,  Schaffle,  De  Greef,  and,  indeed,  all  the 
modern  sociologists,  have  either  expressly  or  by  implication 
insisted  on  the  function  of  order  in  the  achievement  of  prog- 
ress.® Now  status  in  one  phase  is  merely  order  recognized 
and  secured.  If  it  is  secured  so  rigidly  that  the  order  cannot 
resolve  itself  into  a  different  status,  there  is  evidently  an 
arrest  of  function  in  the  social  process.  Perhaps  we  may  sug- 
gest the  reality  by  use  of  the  analogy  of  the  governor  on  the 
safety-valve  on  an  engine.  There  is  a  certain  statical  relation 
between  the  steam-pressure,  the  weight  of  the  balls  on  the 
arms  of  the  governor,  the  speed  of  revolution,  and  the  fric- 
tion of  the  parts.  If,  however,  the  valve  or  the  bearings  of 
the  governor  be  rusted  into  fixity,  the  entire  functional  value 
of  the  device  is  lost.  It  is  useless,  both  as  an  end  unto  itself 
and  as  a  structural  element  of  the  engine.  The  like  is  true 
of  the  social  elements. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  there  are  no  statical  relations,  no 
proportional  values,  no  functional  assignments  among  men, 
the  whole  social  process  is  by  so  much  reduced  to  what  Spencer 
phrases  as  "  indefinite,  incoherent  homogeneity."  It  is  the 
absence  of  order  and  the  negation  of  progress.  This  condi- 
tion might  be  symbolized  to  a  certain  extent  by  pieces  of  metal 
sufficient  to  make  the  parts  of  an  engine,  but  scattered  pro- 

^  Vide  Ward,  Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  I,  pp.  125  f. 


6o8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

miscuously,  instead  of  being  manufactured  and  assembled  in 
a  working  machine. 

The  bearing  of  all  this  upon  the  present  term  in  our 
schedule  may  not  be  perfectly  evident.  The  point  is  this : 
Assured  constancy  of  the  conditions  involved  in  association, 
and  assured  safety  of  individual  and  social  accomplishments, 
is  the  concept  symbolised  by  the  term  "security."  This  set 
of  relations  among  men  is  another  universal  incident  of  asso- 
ciation. It  is,  primarily,  a  condition  of  order.  It  is,  sec- 
ondarily, like  all  static  conditions  up  to  a  certain  point,  tribu- 
tary to  progress.  Reduced  to  more  concrete  expression,  the 
present  theorem  is  that  human  association  not  only  furnishes, 
but  is  a  guarantee  of,  relative  security  —  on  the  one  hand  to 
the  association,  on  the  other  hand  to  the  individuals  assimi- 
lated in  the  association. 

Primitive  association,  say  in  the  horde,  realizes  little  more 
than  security  of  the  species-interest,  as  in  the  case  of  any  other 
animal  association.  Changes  in  type  of  associations,  from 
less  to  more  civilized,  are  both  effect  and  cause  of  security  in 
a  more  complete  sense.  Presently  association  becomes  to  such 
a  degree  psychical  that  the  security  is  more  and  more  conven- 
tional—  that  is,  artificial  —  and  consequently  weak  with  the 
defects  of  human  knowledge  and  feeling.  From  that  time 
forward  the  social  problem  may  be  stated  in  terms  of  security, 
namely :  How  may  that  security  for  the  individual  and  for 
the  association,  without  which  the  individual  cannot  remain 
satisfied  in  the  association,  be  so  sanctioned  and  safeguarded 
that  it  will  not  destroy  itself? 

Let  our  first  concrete  illustration  be  the  institution  of 
political  sovereignty.  Sovereignty,  in  fact,  is  ix)wer  to  claim 
obedience  from  the  persons  comi)osing  the  society,  and  to  be 
free  from  liability  to  render  obedience  in  turn  to  any  other 
persons.  Sovereignty  in  its  workings  is  a  realization  of 
security.  There  are  gradations  in  amounts  of  goods  secured, 
and  of  degrees  of  certainty  with  which  they  are  assured, 
marked  by  transit  from  the  fist-law  of  the  horde  to  the  blood- 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  609 

feud  of  the  tribal  State,  and  to  the  legal  sanction  of  the  civic 
State.  The  attainment  of  sovereignty,  however,  by  any  sort 
of  ruling  power,  marks  the  realization  of  security  for  some 
things  in  higher  degrees,  and  henceforth  there  is  order  of 
some  sort.  There  is  some  certainty  in  the  place  of  total  uncer- 
tainty; some  conventionality  in  place  of  complete  arbitrari- 
ness; some  uniformity  instead  of  utter  irregularity.  With 
all  this,  and  in  virtue  of  all  this,  there  is  heightened  intensive- 
ness  of  association. 

In  his  Study  of  Sociology,  Herbert  Spencer  has  insisted  on 
the  necessity  of  becoming  familiar  with  the  concept  of  the 
certainty  of  relations  in  the  real  world.  In  the  social  section 
of  the  real  world  there  is  a  tendency  to  realize  in  practice 
certainty  of  objective  relations,  and  to  develop  corresponding 
consciousness  of  that  certainty.  This  certainty  of  relations 
in  its  lowest  forms  is  merely  an  aspect  of  the  general  cosmic 
law.  Human  association  tends  to  establish  relations  of  an 
order  peculiar  to  itself,  and  these  pbjective  relations,  with  the 
corresponding  subjective  facts  in  view  of  them,  are  first 
demonstrations  that  society  exists,  then  essentials  of  associa- 
tion, then  conditions  of  improved  association.  We  have  the 
permanent  paradox,  with  the  terms  changing  their  content  at 
every  step  :  Without  association  no  security;  zvithout  security 
no  association. 

The  principle  underlying  the  institution  of  sovereignty  is 
visible  again  in  all  the  phenomena  of  authority  of  other  types. 
In  matters  of  belief,  social  security  is  found  in  a  prescribed 
consensus  of  creed,  until  the  associated  persons  learn  to  find 
more  security  in  each  other's  "  will  to  believe  "  than  in  a  per- 
functory formula  of  what  to  believe.  Modern  liberalism  is 
not  a  surrender  of  intellectual  and  moral  security;  it  is  dis- 
covery of  more  security  in  voluntary  loyalty  to  truth  than  in 
forced  obedience  to  authority.  We  are  not  living  without 
security  of  intellectual  and  moral  sanctions ;  we  are  testing  the 
virtues  of  different  sanctions  from  those  that  were  relied  upon 
in  former  times.    Today  we  say  that  "  Truth  is  mighty  and  it 


6io  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

will  prevail,"  instead  of  saying,  "  Such  and  such  is  the  truth, 
therefore  our  brute  force  shall  make  it  prevail."  Today  our 
social  security  in  matters  of  belief  is  found  in  the  affinity  of  all 
men  for  truth,  and  their  gravitation  toward  agreement  about 
truth,  rather  than  in  the  power  of  some  men  to  force  concep- 
tions of  truth  upon  others. 

The  same  principle  may  be  illustrated  in  the  case  of  our 
industrial  order.  Whatever  indictments  we  may  bring  against 
modern  industrial  systems,  they  secure  certain  definite  things 
and  relationships  to  all  members  of  industrial  society.  The 
balance  may  be  unjust  and  temporary,  but  while  it  lasts  it  is  a 
recourse  even  for  those  who  want  to  substitute  a  different 
order  at  the  earliest  moment.  The  anarchist  agitates  for  a 
society  in  which  there  will  be  no  police;  meanwhile  his  agita- 
tion has  the  security  of  police  protection.  The  socialist  cru- 
sades for  a  society  in  which  there  will  be  no  private  owner- 
ship of  land ;  but  he  is  guaranteed  protection  of  the  courts  in 
using  the  products  of  his  own  piece  of  land  to  maintain  his 
campaign  for  the  socialization  of  other  people's  property. 

Security  is  a  fact,  a  static  principle,  a  dynamic  factor,  and  a 
developing  ideal  in  human  association.  It  is  not  quantita- 
tively nor  qualitatively  constant,  but  in  some  form  and  degree 
it  is  universal.  It  is  both  order  and  a  condition  of  order; 
and,  for  reasons  already  noticed,  it  is  consequently  both  prog- 
ress and  a  condition  of  progress. 

7.  Continuity  of  Influence. —  The  fact  that  this  inci- 
dent has  repeatedly  been  suggested,  and  is  implied  in  those 
aspects  of  association  already  discussed,  would  not  justify  its 
exclusion  from  separate  mention  in  our  analysis.  No  associa- 
tion is  eternal.  Associations  vary  incalculably  in  permanence. 
Every  association  whatsoever  is  a  channel  through  which 
some  part  of  the  social  tradition  is  perpetuated.  Association 
is  projection  of  the  earlier  moment  into  the  later.  Associa- 
tion is  preservation  of  the  past  in  the  present  and  its  pro- 
duction in  the  future.  Association  is  the  means  by  which 
continuity  of  human  action  is  realized  and  guaranteed.    Asso- 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  6ii 

ciation  is  the  reagent  that  makes  successive  social  situations 
parts  of  each  other. 

There  is  a  story  that  during  the  early  summer  of  1898, 
when  there  was  great  excitement  throughout  the  country  over 
a  possible  descent  of  the  Spanish  fleet  upon  our  Atlantic  coast, 
a  western  man  asked  a  Boston  citizen  what  he  thought  about 
the  danger  of  Cervera's  bombarding  the  city.  "  Bombard 
Boston!"  was  the  response.  "You  talk  as  though  Boston 
were  a  locality.  Boston  is  not  a  place;  Boston  is  a  state  of 
mind.  You  can  no  more  shoot  it  with  a  gun  than  you  could 
shoot  wisdom,  or  justice,  or  magnanimity."  Whether  the 
tale  is  fact  or  fiction,  there  is  profound  truth  underneath  its 
humor.  Boston  is  essentially  a  state  of  mind.  Destroy  the 
custom-house,  and  the  city  hall,  and  the  state  house,  and  the 
art  museum,  and  the  public  library;  and  Boston  will  not  be 
touched.  Level  Beacon  Hill,  and  plow  up  the  Common,  and 
close  historic  Cornhill  and  Brattle  Street;  yet  Boston  will 
remain.  Remove  the  storied  tower  of  old  South  Church,  and 
tear  down  Fanueil  Hall,  and  topple  over  Bunker  Hill  monu- 
ment; yet  Boston  will  be  left.  Increase  and  Cotton  Mather, 
Governor  Winthrop  and  Sam  Adams,  John  Hancock,  Gar- 
rison, Phillips,  and  Sumner,  Longfellow,  Whittier,  Lowell, 
and  Emerson,  are  more  of  today's  Boston  than  its  geographic 
site,  and  its  material  structures,  and  its  mayor,  and  its  com- 
missioner of  public  works,  and  its  superintendent  of  schools, 
and  its  editors  and  its  teachers  and  its  ministers.  Boston  is 
a  standard  of  thinking,  a  set  of  conceptions  and  emotions,  a 
body  of  conclusions  about  the  conduct  of  life. 

The  same,  however,  is  the  fact  about  every  community  that 
has  not  forfeited  its  birthright  in  the  human  family.  Our 
generation  is  a  parliament  of  timeless  persons  of  whom  we,  the 
living,  are  the  least.  By  the  fiction  of  death,  those  are  sup- 
posed to  be  absent  who  actually  hold  the  balance  of  power. 
This  immortality  of  personal  influence  is  mediated  within 
and  through  association.  Social  effects  vary  in  visible  force 
with  the  character  and  constancy  of  the  associations  which  are 


6i2  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

their  vehicles.  The  fortuitous  association  of  the  matinee 
audience  merely  scatters  a  few  impressions  that  are  presently 
diffused  beyond  trace  in  the  multitude.  The  association  that 
maintains  certain  forms  of  religious  worship  at  a  given  point, 
may  for  generations  affect  the  community  with  a  philosophy 
of  life  radically  opposed  to  the  conception  prevalent  in  the 
population  at  large.  The  State  may  so  extend  the  time- 
consciousness  of  the  citizens  that  the  nozv  of  their  thought  may 
include  many  centuries  of  national  life. 

In  this  incident  we  have  another  of  those  insights  into  the 
social  process  which  are  symbolized  by  that  pregnant  phrase 
"the  organic  concept."  The  implications  of  this  detail  are  too 
extensive  even  for  preliminary  suggestion  within  our  present 
limits.  It  must  suffice  merely  to  reserve  for  the  item  of  "  con- 
tinuity" its  proper  place  in  social  analysis. 

8.  Mobility  of  Type. —  Any  change  marks  a  difference 
of  social  type  which  consists  of  (a)  reorgani^atioji  of  the  con- 
stituent parts  of  the  association,  or  (b)  redistribution  of 
poii'cr  among  the  different  elements  of  the  association,  or  (c) 
shifting  of  the  prevailing  principles  in  the  association,  or  (d) 
substitution  of  qualitatively  different  aims  of  the  association. 
The  social  state,  that  is,  the  fact  of  human  beings  in  contact 
with  each  other,  is  inseparable  from  constant  procession  of 
these  changes.  They  are  going  on  while  men  wake  or  sleep. 
If  men  imagine  that  social  order  is  fixed,  they  deceive  them- 
selves. If  they  imagine  that  by  taking  thought  they  can 
arrest  variation  of  balance  and  of  type,  they  show  their  igno- 
rance of  the  terms  with  which  they  theorize.  The  very  opposi- 
tion of  a  person  or  a  group  to  a  social  tendency  is  in  itself 
an  accomplished  change  of  greater  or  less  importance  in  the 
equilibrium  or  type  of  the  group  in  which  the  effort  occurs. 

Altogether  apart  from  judgments  of  the  actors  primarily 
concerned,  or  from  our  own  judgments  of  the  desirability  or 
undesirability  of  changes,  there  is  the  elemental  fact  of  per- 
petual transition  from  one  order  of  association  to  another. 
Possibly  the  phrase  "  redistribution  of  the  elements "  would 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  613 

better  describe  this  condition  than  the  term  we  have  selected. 
We  might  enHst  the  term  "  evokition,"  if  that  had  not  come  to 
be  so  closely  associated  with  theories  of  method  of  change, 
rather  than  with  the  fact  of  change  itself.  We  might  partially 
paraphrase  Spencer's  famous  formula  of  evolution  J  and  say 
that  one  of  the  dynamic  conditions  of  society  is  "  integration 
of  persons,  and  concomitant  dissipation  of  motion."  We 
might  simply  say  that  change  is  incessantly  taking  place  in 
the  types  of  association  which  men  compose.  Making  the 
letters  from  A  to  Z  represent  the  members  of  an  association, 
we  may  say  that  the  order  of  the  letters  is  never  long  constant. 
Even  if  the  association  is  in  the  savage  state,  the  facts  of  sex 
and  age  always  produce  among  the  individuals  a  certain 
rhythm,  although  the  type  of  the  society  itself  may  remain 
constant. 

With  every  development  of  individual  needs  beyond  the 
crude  animal  interest,  the  impulse  to  movement  presently 
becomes  differentiation  of  employments.  The  priest,  the  war- 
rior, the  artist,  the  food-procurer,  visualize  the  previously 
latent  tendency  to  move  individuals  into  other  balance,  or  into 
other  relation  of  forces  in  the  combination. 

Type  after  type  of  arrangements  of  persons  have  suc- 
ceeded each  other  throughout  human  experience.  No  sooner 
are  persons  adjusted  to  each  other  in  any  form  whatever  — 
as,  for  example,  in  the  matriarchate  —  than  interests  begin  to 
push  and  pull  them  toward  other  arrangements  —  as,  for 
instance,  the  patriarchate.  Perhaps,  if  we  simply  say  that 
there  has  been  ceaseless  variation  of  types  of  association,  we 
shall  sufficiently  indicate  the  reality  for  our  present  purpose.* 

We  may  single  out,  by  way  of  illustration,  those  sorts  of 
rearrangements  which  we  are  disposed  to  call  progressive. 
The  word  "progress"  is  the  fifth  term  in  Lester  F.  Ward's 

''First  Principles,   ist  ed.,  p.  396. 

'Cf.  Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology,  Vol.  I,  Part  II,  chap.  11,  "Social 
Metamorphoses." 


6i4  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

famous  series  of  social  means  and  ends,^  namely :  ( i )  educa- 
tion, (2)  knowledge,  (3)  dynamic  opinion,  (4)  dynamic 
action,  (5)  progress,  (6)  happiness.  It  need  not  be  said  that 
in  this  series  the  term  "progress"  has  implications  which  are 
not  necessarily  involved  in  the  abstraction  with  which  we  are 
now  dealing,  but  our  illustration  calls  attention  merely  to  one 
group  of  such  changes.  We  are  not  thinking  of  progress  as 
a  term  in  a  dynamic  series,  but  rather  as  a  phase  of  the  whole 
social  fact,  itself  conditioned  in  turn  by  all  the  other  traits  of 
the  reality  of  which  it  is  an  aspect.  To  vary  our  expression, 
we  may  say  that  a  universal  phase  of  association  is  instability 
of  the  relationships  of  the  associates.  Reformation,  readjust- 
ment, readaptation,  abandonment  of  forms  of  association  less 
fitted  to  changed  circumstances,  is  one  of  the  general  and 
constant  incidents  of  the  social  process.  To  proceed  farther  in 
description  of  this  incident  would  involve  entrance  upon  analy- 
sis of  the  causes  and  forces  maintaining  this  and  the  other 
incidents  which  we  have  discovered  in  the  social  process.  We 
accordingly  close  our  schedule  at  this  point,  with  repetition  of 
the  remark  that  among  generalizations  such  as  these  we  have 
provisional  data  for  the  larger  problems  of  sociology. 

Ratzenhofer  has  said  that  the  fundamental  phenomena  of 
the  social  process  are  (a)  sustenance  and  propagation;  (b) 
perfecting  {Vervollkommming)  ;  (c)  variation  of  individual 
and  social  types;  {d)  struggle  for  existence;  {c)  absolute 
hostility;  (/)  distribution  in  space  and  racial  differentiation; 
{g)  mastery  and  subjection;  (/i)  alternate  individualization 
and  socialization  of  structures;  (1)  variation  of  interests;  (/) 
social  necessity;  {k)  the  State;  (/)  general  society.^"  It  is 
impossible  to  discuss  at  present  the  divergencies  between  this 
schedule  and  our  own,  or  to  inquire  whether  they  might  be 
harmonized.  The  point  of  immediate  interest  is  that  sociolo- 
gists are  everywhere  pressing  toward  discovery  of  the  social 

'Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  II,  p.    io8. 
"  Sociologisclic    Erkctuttuiss,    pp.    244-50. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS  615 

essentials.  There  is  growing-  ambition  to  arrive  at  generaliza- 
tions of  the  relationships  which  are  most  universal  and  most 
characteristic  in  human  conditions.  There  is  progressive  per- 
ception that  supposed  knowledge  of  society  is  pitiful  dallying 
with  incoherent  details,  until  we  learn  how  to  construe  these 
fragments  in  their  functional  relations. 

As  we  have  tried  to  make  evident  throughout  Part  VI, 
the  terms  in  our  schedule  are  merely  tentative  formulations 
of  social  facts  which  it  is  the  task  of  sociology  to  make  more 
exact.  These  incidents  are  merely  partially  criticised  data 
which  certain  types  of  sociologists  recognize  the  need  of  test- 
ing. Having  these  syntheses  of  many  observations,  we  are  in 
a  position  analogous  with  that  of  the  physicists  when  they  had 
gone  far  enough  to  describe  "  matter "  as  "  that  which  has 
extension,  density,  specific  gravity,  cohesion,  adhesion,  inertia, 
momentum,  etc."  The  science  of  physics  was  not  completed 
in  such  formulas.  It  was  virtually  just  proposed.  The  gen- 
eralizations which  we  have  brought  together  are  not  scheduled 
as  a  closed  system  of  social  science.  They  are  statements  of 
apparent  and  approximate  truths,  in  the  region  of  which 
earnest  efforts  to  develop  tenable  sociology  are  in  progress. 


PART   VII 

THE   SOCIAL   PROCESS   CONSIDERED   AS   A   SYSTEM   OF 
PSYCHICAL  PROBLEMS 


CHAPTER   XXXVIII 

THE  RELATION  OF  PART  VII  TO  THE  PREVIOUS  ARGUMENT 

Thomas,  "The  Province  of  Social  Psychology,"  American  Journal 
of  Sociology,  Vol.  X,  p.  445. 

Ross,  "  The  Present  Problems  of  Social  Psychology,"  ibid.,  p.  456. 

In  the  foregoing  analysis  we  have  run  a  preliminary  sur- 
vey over  the  whole  range  of  human  experience.  We  set  out 
with  the  problem  of  finding  a  way  so  to  look  at  all  the  facts  of 
human  experience  that  we  may  reduce  their  seeming  confusion 
to  order,  and  detect  clues  to  their  essential  meaning.  With 
the  help  of  leading  attempts  to  solve  this  problem  (Spencer, 
Schaffle,  Ratzenhofer),  we  have  arrived  at  a  theorem  of  solu- 
tion which  may  be  summed  up  as  follows :  Human  experience 
composes  an  associational  process.  The  elements  of  that 
process  are  interests  lodged  in  individuals.  These  interests 
may  he  reduced  to  least  common  denominators  containing  rela- 
tively simple  essentials,  hut  in  the  conditions  of  actual  life, 
even  at  the  most  primitive  stages,  the  interests  express  them- 
selves in  ivants  capahle  of  infinite  variation  and  comhination. 
The  individuals  thus  stimulated  seek  satisfactions  of  their 
wants,  and  efforts  to  this  end  hring  them  into  contact  with 
each  other.  At  first  these  contacts  are  most  evidently  collisions; 
interest  clashes  with  interest.  The  immediate  result  is  forma- 
tion of  groups  for  offensive  and  defensive  purposes.  These 
groups  in  time  vary  more  and  more  from  the  primitive  animal 
type.  As  the  variation  increases,  association  becomes  an  acceler- 
ated process  of  differentiation  or  permutation  of  interests 
within  the  individuals,  of  contacts  hetween  individuals,  of  con- 
flict and  of  co-operation  among  individuals  and  the  groups  into 
which  they  comhine.  Incidental  to  this  pursuit  of  purposes, 
and  to  the  process  of  adjustment  hetween  persons  which  results, 
individuals  enter  into  certain  more  or  less  persistent  structural 
relationships  with  each  other,  known  in  general  as  "  institu- 

619 


620  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

tions/'  and  into  certain  more  or  less  permanent  directions  of 
effort,  zi'liich  we  may  call  the  social  functions.  These  social 
structures  and  functions  are,  in  the  first  instance,  results  of  the 
previous  associational  process;  but  they  no  sooner  pass  out  of 
the  Hiiid  state,  into  a  relatively  stable  condition,  than  they 
become  in  turn  causes  of  subsequent  stages  of  the  associational 
process,  or  at  least  conditions  affecting  details  of  the  process. 
There  comes  a  time  zvhen  some  of  the  individuals  in  association 
begin  to  reflect  upon  the  association  itself  in  a  fragmentary 
zvay.  They  think  of  their  family,  their  clan,  their  tribe,  their 
nation,  as  having  interests  of  its  ozun,  instead  of  confining 
themselves  to  impulsive  action  stimulated  merely  by  their  indi- 
vidual interests.  These  men  coin  and  utter  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings and  purposes  zvhich  become  current  in  their  group.  There 
are  thenceforzvard  more  or  less  distijict  group-programs, 
co-ordinating  the  instinctive  endeavors  of  the  individuals,  and 
producing  a  certain  mass-movement,  in  addition  to  the  molec- 
ular motions,  in  the  associational  process.  That  is,  the  groups, 
as  such,  entertain  purposes,  and  combine  their  efforts  zvith 
some  degree  of  reference  to  them.  With  this  consummation 
the  associational  process  is  in  full  szving.  All  that  follozvs  is 
merely  differentiated  in  detail.  Interpretation  of  specific  stages 
or  areas  of  human  experience  is  consequently  a  matter  of 
qualitative  and  quantitative  analysis  of  the  experience  in  terms 
of  these  primary  factors.  History,  or  our  ozvn  current  experi- 
ence, records  its  meaning  in  the  degree  in  zuliich  it  discloses  the 
form,  the  quality,  the  force,  and  the  proportions  zvith  zvhich 
these  various  pozvers  of  the  different  elements  and  conditions 
of  association  participate  in  the  given  action. 

But  these  last  propositions  connote  a  division  of  sociological 
theory  virtually  untouched  hy  our  discussion  up  to  this  point. 
Everything  so  far  has  been  simply  what  Wundt  calls  "  descrip- 
tive analysis,"  with  corresponding  synthesis  and  a  minimum  of 
explanation.  Description  alone  is  not  science,  it  merely  pre- 
sents the  raw  material  of  science,  and  proposes  the  serious 
problems   of   science.      Description   of   phenomena    is   merely 


RELATION  OF  PART  VII  TO  PREVIOUS  ARGUMENT      621 

visualized  demand  for  interpretation  of  the  phenomena.  Science 
is  reached  in  the  degree  in  which  interpretation  is  complete. 

In  the  case  of  the  associational  process,  it  would  be  easy  to 
show  that  demand  for  explanation  has  outrun  description  of 
the  phenomena  to  be  explained.  Much  of  the  vagueness  of 
sociology  at  present  is  due  to  the  high  ratio  of  abstract  interpre- 
tation which  has  been  proposed,  while  neither  the  interpreters 
nor  the  public  they  address  can  clearly  picture  the  precise 
phenomena  which  they  are  trying  to  understand.  It  is  as 
though  men  with  very  limited  knowledge  of  languages  should 
attempt  to  teach  laws  of  comparative  grammar  to  people  who 
knew  no  language  well,  and  had  never  discovered  that  there 
is  such  a  reality  as  linguistic  structure  or  growth.  We  have 
had  much  theorizing  about  society,  with  little  analysis  of  actual 
associations.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  until  Ratzenhofer, 
no  one  had  proposed  a  fairly  adequate  scheme  of  objective 
description  of  human  associations,  in  terms  of  the  interests 
that  are  the  irreducible  elements  of  association.^  The  standard 
of  description  which  he  adopted  will  of  course  be  improved 
upon  in  detail,  but  in  principle  we  may  regard  it  as  final. 
Henceforth  we  shall  appraise  the  scientific  value  of  social 
description,  whether  historical  or  contemporary,  according  to 
the  qualitative  and  quantitative  precision  of  its  account  of  all 
the  human  interests  concerned  in  shaping  the  situation  in  ques- 
tion. In  other  words,  we  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  the 
demands  which  must  be  made  upon  historical  and  contemporary 
social  analysis,  if  they  are  to  yield  necessary  data  for  social 
interpretation. 

Meanwhile,  as  was  said  above,  ambitious  attempts  have 
been  made  to  interpret  the  social  process,  despite  the  fact  that 
it  has  never  been  adequately  described.  All  the  so-called 
philosophies  of  history,  for  example,  are  attempts  after  their 
kind  to  unravel  the  mysteries  of  human  experience.  Since 
these  a  priori  schemes  have  fallen  into  disrepute,  sociologists 

*  Quite  in  the  spirit  of  this  proposition  is  Sombart,  Der  moderne  Kapitalis- 
mus.  Vol.  II,  chap.  i. 


622  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

have  taken  up  the  quest  for  explanation.  We  need  not  here 
review  the  types  of  explanation  that  have  been  proposed.  It 
is  enough  to  say  in  general  that  at  present  the  promising 
attempts  to  interpret  the  social  process  are  all  based  on  the 
presumption  that  interchange  of  psychical  influences  is  some- 
how the  decisive  fact  in  human  association.  Tlie  assumption 
is  not  that  men  live  in  a  vacuum,  nor  that  the  associational 
process  is  an  intercourse  between  disembodied  spirits.  On  the 
contrary,  all  the  physical  and  biological  conditions  to  which 
men  are  subject  are  taken  for  granted  at  their  full  value;  but 
the  variant  that  at  last  separates  human  association  from  the 
associations  of  other  animals,  and  which  is  trusted  to  account 
for  the  peculiar  features  of  the  human  process,  is  the  influence 
of  mind  upon  mind. 

In  other  words,  the  interpretation  of  the  social  process 
which  has  been  projected  is  what  we  know  as  "social  psy- 
chology." 

Men  and  groups  are  what  they  are  because  they  are  influ- 
enced by  other  men  and  groups.  Description  of  human  asso- 
ciations, after  the  plan  that  we  have  outlined,  displays  this 
general  reality  in  detail.  Interpretation  of  this  reality,  so  as 
to  constitute  a  social  psychology,  must  involve  discovery  of 
the  whole  method,  and  the  laws  of  the  method,  by  which 
impulse  is  transmitted  from  one  mind  to  another.  This  is 
obviously  the  point  at  which  practical  interest  in  sociological 
theory  begins  for  teacher,  reformer,  and  leader.  If  the  asso- 
ciational process  is  .distinctively  a  play  of  mind  upon  mind, 
and  if  we  are  ambitious  to  exert  a  molding  influence  on 
society,  it  goes  without  saying  that  we  must  try  to  master  the 
mystery  of  the  influence  of  mind  upon  mind.  This  influence 
is  not  merely  the  tool  which  we  must  use.  but  it  is  the  force 
against  which  we  must  contend.  Social  influence  is  the  sub- 
stitution of  one  mental  state  for  another.  Not  merely  for  the 
sake  of  pure  science  therefore,  but  for  the  further  sake  of 
practical  application,  the  radical  problem  is :  By  virtue  of 
what  laws  of  psychical  action  docs  it  come  about  that  one  man 


RELATION  OF  PART  VII  TO  PREVIOUS  ARGUMENT      623 

inUuerices  another;  that  thoughts,  feelings,  and  purposes  pass 
current  among  many  men  at  the  same  time;  that  individuals 
act  now  as  though  they  existed  alone,  and  again  as  '^  members 
one  of  another;"  that  the  common  currency  of  thought,  feel- 
ing, and  purpose  fluctuates  both  in  volume  and  in  kind;  that 
the  rate  of  this  change  is  sometimes  sluggish  and  sometimes 
rapid;  that  the  structures  and  functions  which  men's  associa- 
tions maintain  undergo  differentiation,  and  thus  from  time  to 
time  exert  changed  sorts  of  reactions  upon  individuals?  In 
short,  descriptive  knowledge  of  the  social  process  passes  into 
science  of  the  social  process,  properly  so  called,  only  in  the 
degree  in  which  we  become  able  to  restate  all  that  we  have 
found  in  the  way  of  phenomena  of  human  experience,  in  terms 
of  the  mental  influences  which  are  the  causal  nexus  of  the 
whole  process.  That  is,  we  find  that  science  of  the  social 
process  involves,  sooner  or  later,  science  of  "the  social  forces."^ 
Throughout  descriptive  analysis  of  the  social  process,  the  con- 
crete fact  and  the  abstract  generalization  "  social  forces  "  have 
been  thrust  upon  our  attention.^  We  must  now  locate  the 
decisive  problems  of  sociology  in  the  region  of  these  social 
forces. 

Professor  Romanzo  Adams  concludes  a  vigorous  discus- 
sion of  "  The  Nature  of  the  Social  Unity  "  with  this  formula : 

A  social  group  is  composed  of  persons  who  are  conscious  individuals, 
and  all  real  social  ends  are  to  be  found  in  these  individuals.  The  social 
unity,  then,  is  an  objectively  organic  unity  whose  constituent  parts  are 
psychic  individuals.* 

Provided  they  were  assured  that  the  phrase  "objectively 
organic"  did  not  carry  along  a  vicious  taint  of  "biological 
sociology,"  few  sociologists  would  find  occasion  for  dissent 
from  Mr.  Adams'  theorem.^ 

*  Vide  Ward,  "  The  Mechanics  of  Society,"  Outlines  of  Sociology,  chap.  8  ; 
of.  Ross,  The  Foundations  of  Sociology,  chaps.  7  and  8. 

'Chap.  35,  sec.  3.  *  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  X,  p.  227. 

*  Professors  Ellwood  and  Hayes  have  challenged  this  argument  with  a 
good  deal  of  force,  but  rather  on  account  of  certain  negations  by  which  Mr. 
Adams  approached  the  formula  than  because  of  serious  disagreement  with 
the  terms  of  the  conclusion  itself.     (Ibid.,  Vol.  X,  pp.  634  and  666.) 


624  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Our  argument  thus  far  has  been  to  the  effect  that  the 
problem  of  knowledge,  so  far  as  human  experience  is  con- 
cerned, is  to  discover  what  goes  on  in  human  association  in 
terms  of  process.  In  so  far  as  we  become  aware  that  the  units 
of  the  social  process  are  "psychic  individuals,"  there  is  no 
escape  from  the  conviction  that  the  final  terms  in  the  social 
process  are  the  psychic  facts  which  occur  in  the  individuals 
that  carry  on  the  process. 

This  is  by  no  means  equivalent  to  the  conclusion  that  at 
last  sociological  and  psychological  problems  are  identical.  On 
the  contrary,  there  is  a  very  obvious  line  of  division  between 
the  fundamental  laws  of  relation  between  stimulus,  attention, 
valuation,  and  volition  on  the  one  hand,  which  is  the  undis- 
puted preserve  of  psychology,  and  application  of  those  laws  in 
accounting  for  the  particular  situations  with  respect  to  valua- 
tions and  choices  in  actual  association.  It  is  entirely  con- 
ceivable that  the  psychologists,  rather  than  the  sociologists, 
will  apply  the  key  to  unlock  the  mysteries  which  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  sociologists  to  state.  However  this  may  be,  the 
sort  of  analysis  and  synthesis  of  social  phenomena  which  we 
have  outlined,  brings  us  at  last  face  to  face  with  questions  that 
have  relations  to  our  previous  argument  much  like  those  which 
the  theory  of  the  legal  and  financial  sides  of  railroading  have 
to  the  engineering  and  operating  sides  of  the  railroad  business. 
That  is,  we  have  provided  for  analysis  and  correlation  of  the 
objective  facts  of  the  social  process,  up  to  certain  limits.  It 
remains  to  push  inquiry  into  the  subjective  facts,  viz.,  those 
relations  between  social  situations  and  the  choices  of  indi- 
viduals which  contain  the  last  explanations  discoverable  of  the 
concerted  activities  of  individuals. 

We  may  imagine  that  a  visitor  from  Mars  might  inspect 
the  plant  and  equipment  of  the  New  York  Central  Railroad, 
for  instance,  before  he  developed  any  curiosity  about  mundane 
legislation  or  industrial  order.  He  might  get  a  good  idea  of 
the  road  as  an  engineering  and  mechanical  system,  with  very 
little  notion  of  its  relation  to  the  pheiiomena  of  human  pur- 


RELATION  OF  PART  VII  TO  PREVIOUS  ARGUMENT      625 

poses,  which  after  all  account  for  the  existence  and  operation 
of  the  road.  To  understand  what  the  road  means,  he  would 
need  to  get  acquainted  with  our  whole  body  of  legal  and  indus- 
trial institutions. 

The  analogy  is  not  between  the  laws  and  industries,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  psychical  processes,  on  the  other;  because  the 
psychical  processes  that  we  now  have  in  mind  are  to  be  found 
in  part,  of  course,  in  laws  and  industries.  The  analogy  is 
rather  between  the  more  and  less  external  in  two  cases. 

The  problem  is :  What  can  be  found  out  about  the  pri- 
mary psychical  reactions  between  individuals  which  register 
themselves  in  social  adjustments? 

The  significance  of  all  that  we  have  done  by  way  of  tracing 
the  character  of  the  social  process  is  that  the  process  as  thus 
analyzed  is  the  location  of  this  final  psychical  problem.  In 
this  complicated  social  process  we  have  the  infinitely  diversified 
phenomena  of  personal  choice.  The  general  question  is : 
What  are  the  lazvs  of  choice  in  accordance  zvith  which  men's 
conduct  takes  the  directions  which  zve  observe  in  the  process 
that  zve  have  analyzed? 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIAL  CAUSATION 

Among  pioneers  in  the  field  of  social  psychology  no  one 
attracts  more  attention  at  present  than  Gabriel  Tarde.  Dur- 
ing the  past  decade  his  theories  have  provoked  increasing  inter- 
est among  both  sociologists  and  psychologists.  His  recent 
death  (December,  1903)  has  stimulated  study  of  his  books. 
While  I  am  obliged  to  dissent  from  his  most  characteristic 
views,  it  is  convenient  to  make  his  chief  theorems  an  occasion 
for  formulating  certain  elementary  considerations  to  be 
respected  in  carrying  on  investigation  in  social  psychology.^ 

Tarde's  theory  may  be  epitomized  as  follows : 

First :  Human  association  is  a  species  under  the  genus 
animal  association.^ 

Second:  The  process  in  animal  association  in  general, 
and  in  human  association  in  particular,  is  the  imitation  of 
invention.^  The  social  being,  in  the  degree  that  he  is  social, 
is  essentially  imitative.'*  To  innovate,  to  discover,  to  awake 
for  an  instant  from  his  dream  of  home  and  country,  the  indi- 
vidual must  escape,  for  the  time  being,  from  his  social  sur- 
roundings. Such  unusual  audacity  makes  him  super-social 
rather  than  social.^  Every  act  of  imitation  is  preceded  by  hesi- 
tation on  the  part  of  the  individual.  Now,  as  long  as  a 
man  hesitates  in  this  way,  he  refrains  from  imitation,  whereas 
it  is  only  as  an  imitator  that  he  is  a  part  of  society."     Society 

'  In  the  order  of  publication,  his  most  important  books  for  our  purpose  are : 
(i)  Les  lois  de  limitation  (1890-95);  (2)  La  logique  sociale  (1895);  (3) 
L'opposition  universelle  (1897)  ;  (4)  Les  lois  socialcs  (1898).  In  this  chapter 
the  references,  with  a  single  exception,  are  to  the  American  translation  of  the 
first  work. 

^  Laws  of  Imitation,  p.  3.  *  Ibid.,  p.   11.  'Ibid.,  p.   165. 

'Ibid.,  p.  4-  '/6id.,  p.  88. 

626 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIAL  CAUSATION  (fZj 

is  imitation.^  This  body  of  "  simian  "  proclivities  constitutes 
the  potential  energy  of  a  society.* 

The  theory  thus  epitomized  is  more  generally  under  con- 
sideration today  than  any  other  as  a  basis  for  social  psy- 
chology. 

Before  proposing  an  alternative  theorem,  we  must  expose 
two  cardinal  weaknesses  in  Tarde's  system.  In  the  first  place, 
Tarde  acknowledges  that  he  has  taken  the  liberty  of  using  the 
term  "  imitation  "  in  a  sense  peculiar  to  himself.  What  that 
sense  is  he  describes  in  the  statement:  "By  imitation  I  mean 
every  impression  of  an  inter-psychical  photography,  so  to 
speak,  zvilled  or  not  willed,  passive  or  active/'^  A  moment's 
reflection  will  impeach  the  term,  if  this  is  its  content,  of 
incapacity  to  explain  anything.  When  we  have  said  that  a 
given  act  is  a  social  act,  if  the  above  formula  is  to  be  taken 
as  our  guide,  we  have  simply  said  that  it  is  one  of  the  innu- 
merable varieties  of  acts  in  which  any  sort  of  "impression  of  an 
inter-psychical  photography  "  plays  a  part.  That  is,  we  have 
not  explained  the  act  at  all,  beyond  placing  it  in  the  whole  class 
of  acts  which  we  distinguish  from  non-social  acts.  I  will 
not  now  ask  whether  Tarde's  line  between  the  social  and  the 
non-social  is  correctly  drawn,  but  will  assume  so  much,  for 
the  sake  of  the  more  important  part  of  the  argument.  As 
distinguished,  then,  from  a  mechanical  act,  like  falling  from 
a  precipice,  or  a  physiological  act,  like  taking  refuge  from 
the  sun's  rays  under  the  shade  of  a  tree,  a  social  act,  we  will 
agree  for  the  nonce,  is  one  in  which  there  is  some  real  or 
constructive  exchange  of  mental  impressions.  But  Tarde 
takes  that  much  for  granted  before  he  begins  to  offer  explana- 
tions. Accordingly,  giving  the  name  "  imitation  "  to  all  the 
acts  in  the  class  so  constituted  simply  provides  a  term  for  an 
identical  proposition.  That  is,  the  formula  "  a  social  act  is 
an  act  of  imitation  "  turns  out  to  mean  simply  "  a  social  act 

''Ibid.,   p.   74.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  107. 

'Ibid.,  Preface  to  second  edition,  pp.  xiii,  xiv. 


628  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

is  a  social  act;"  it  is  one  of  the  acts  which  have  the  marks  that 
we  have  by  definition  identified  with  the  concept  "  social." 

But  Tarde  was  too  acute  a  thinker  to  be  satisfied  with 
such  an  obvious  fallacy.  This  definition  of  "  imitation  "  was 
an  afterthought,  in  reply  to  objections;  but  unfortunately  it 
cannot  be  made  to  cover  his  use  of  the  term.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  very  plain  that  the  word  has  not  merely  one,  but 
several  specific  shades  of  meaning  in  different  parts  of  his 
argument,  and  it  is  never  clear  which  of  them  is  in  his 
mind  at  a  given  stage  of  the  discussion.^"  In  general,  the 
word  is  used,  first,  as  a  term  of  sociological  description.  For 
instance,  a  given  portion  of  a  religious  ritual  is  an  "  imita- 
tion;" i.  e.,  it  is  identical  with  ritual  acts  that  have  been  per- 
formed up  the  line  of  ancestry  for  a  long  time.  Then  the 
word  is  used,  second,  as  a  term  of  psychological  explanation ; 
i.  e.,  the  reason  why  the  ritual  act  recurs  again  and  again  is 
because  the  mental  process  of  imitation  is  supposed  to  be  per- 
formed. This  latter  is  pure  hypothesis,  and  the  strength  of 
the  hypothesis  appears  to  be  derived  chiefly  from  the  fallacy 
of  the  ambiguous  middle  in  the  use  of  the  key-term  "  imita- 
tion." Thus,  there  are  recurrences  in  society.  We  will  call 
them  imitations.  But  imitation  is  the  name  of  a  psychologi- 
cal process.  Hence,  presto!  this  name  that  we  have  applied 
to  objective  fact  must  be  taken  without  further  inquiry  as 
fixing  on  the  fact  a  meaning  which  the  name  elsewhere  signifies 
as  a  subjective  process! 

In  the  second  place,  Tarde  entangles  himself,  and  his 
readers  still  more,  in  an  abstraction,  and  in  an  essentially  dia- 
lectic argument,  viz.,  in  his  use  of  the  different  forms  of  the 
term  "social."  He  confesses  at  one  point  that  his  definition 
of  "society"  is  properly  a  definition  of  " sociality." ^^  Now, 
it  is  one  thing  to  describe  the  area  of  social  phenomena  as 

*"  For  instance,  in  the  preface  to  La  logiquc  socialc  he  says :  "  In  my 
view,  imitation  is  the  social  memory."  The  two  terms  "  social  memory  "  and 
"any   inter-mental   photography"   are   surely   not   interchangeable! 

^  Laws  of  Imitation,  p.  69. 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIAL  CAUSATION  629 

that  circumference  within  which  inter-mental  photography 
occurs,  and  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  allege  that  the  acts 
performed  within  that  area  are  essentially  imitative.  The 
one  statement  is  merely  an  attempt  to  locate  phenomena  to 
be  explained.  The  other  is  an  attempt  to  explain  the  phe- 
nomena. But  in  the  second  case  the  reference  is  to  acts,  not 
to  an  abstracted  quality  of  acts  ("sociality").  There  is  there- 
fore a  double  non  scquitur  involved  in  assuming  that  the  term 
of  description  applied  to  an  abstraction  furnishes  the  psycho- 
logical explanation  of  a  concrete  process. 

The  dilemma  amounts  to  this:  If  Tarde  meant  to  offer 
the  clue  "  imitation  "  in  the  psychological  sense,  as  an  explana- 
tion of  the  essential  element  in  the  process  of  human  associa- 
tion, the  case  rests  simply  upon  his  dictum.  If  he  did  not 
mean  to  use  the  term  "  imitation  "  in  the  psychological  sense, 
but  simply  transferred  it  to  descriptive  uses,  his  system  does 
not  even  purport  to  be  what  it  has  been  accepted  as  being,  viz., 
an  adventure  in  social  psychology.  It  is  merely  a  variation  of 
descriptive  sociology,  and  a  very  attenuated  variation  at  that. 

From  the  amount  of  analogical  and  metaphorical  expres- 
sion in  his  argument  I  infer  that  Tarde  at  first  used  the  term 
"  imitation "  in  a  sense  loosely  distributed  between  the  ordi- 
nary psychological  meaning  and  the  peculiar  descriptive  con- 
tent in  the  definition  above  cited.  He  seems  almost  to  have 
persuaded  himself  that  his  favorite  term  was  fatally  vague, 
and  he  almost  exchanged  it  for  "  suggestion  "  when  he  wanted 
a  term  for  the  original  act  of  social  psychology.^ ^ 

Whether  this  surmise  is  correct  or  not,  it  would  be  nearer 
the  truth  to  formulate  the  relations  with  which  Tarde  deals, 
along  these  lines : 

First:  So  far  as  the  elements  of  the  subjective  process 
are  concerned,  there  is  no  line  to  be  drawn  between  acts  that 
are  social  and  those  that  are  non-social  in  their  origin.  It 
makes  no  difference  whether  it  is  the  burned  child  dreading 
the  fire,  with  which  he  has  had  no  occasion  to  associate  any 

^- Ibid.,  pp.  79,  204,  205. 


630  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Other  human  being,  or  a  workman  carrying  out  the  directions 
of  his  boss.  In  either  case  the  sentient  series  begins  with  a 
mental  image  induced  by  the  stimuhis.  We  may  trace  back 
every  sentient  act,  whether  the  immediate  occasion  is  a  con- 
dition of  the  agent's  own  body,  or  some  communication  set 
up  between  his  body  and  the  inanimate  world,  or  some  stimu- 
lation of  his  senses  by  another  person,  to  the  elementary 
experience,  which  is  essentially  the  same  in  all  cases,  viz.,  the 
formation  of  an  image.  What  the  mind  does  with  the  image 
in  different  cases  depends  upon  a  great  many  circumstances.^^ 
Tested  by  the  mind's  capability  of  proceeding  from  a  mere 
passive  experience  into  a  complete  active  experience  —  i.  e., 
through  the  combined  processes  of  knowing,  feeling,  and 
willing  —  no  distinction  need  be  made  between  stimuli  arising 
from  experience  with  inanimate  nature  and  those  that  come 
from  contact  with  persons.  We  might  name  the  whole  process 
of  calling  up  a  mental  image,  whether  the  occasion  be  animate 
or  inanimate,  "suggestion."  The  primary  forms  of  mental 
action  do  not  vary  with  the  origin  of  the  stimuli  which  occa- 
sion the  action.  If  we  thought  the  classification 'necessary  or 
useful,  we  might  express  more  correctly  what  Tarde  seems 
to  have  tried  to  formulate,  by  saying  that  society  is  the  realm 
in  which  suggestion  originates  in  persons,  as  distinguished 
from  the  realm  in  ivhich  suggestion  is  originated  by  things. 

Whether  such  a  formula  would  be  worth  making,  for  any 
other  purpose  than  to  correct  a  false  step  in  Tarde's  reason- 
ing, need  not  be  argued.  At  all  events,  our  substitute  for  his 
formula  leaves  us  without  any  share  of  his  illusion  that  our 
mere  delimitation  of  society  explains  anything  which  takes 
])lace  in  society.  We  have  simply  narrowed  the  field  of  inquiry 
from  the  whole  range  of  experience  to  that  portion  of  experi- 
ence in  which  suggestion  comes  from  persons  rather  than 
from  things. 

Second :  Within  the  range  of  experience  in  general,  the 
act  that   follows  a  suggestion  does  not  necessarily  bear  any 

"Cf.  Roycc,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  chaps.  $  and  6. 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIAL  CAUSATION  631 

resemblance  to  the  source  of  the  suggestion;  nor,  if  it  does, 
is  it  necessarily  an  act  of  imitation.  Today  I  suddenly  become 
aware  that  an  angry  cloud  covers  the  sky,  I  run  for  shelter. 
Yesterday  I  saw  a  man  with  an  umbrella  in  his  hand,  and 
I  returned  to  my  house  for  my  umbrella.  The  two  acts  were 
psychologically  similar.  Each  was  an  act  the  motive  of  which 
was  self-protection.  Each  is  to  be  accounted  for  as  a  use  of  the 
most  available  means  to  an  end,  not  as  essentially  marked  by 
the  fact  that  the  same  means  may  have  been  used  before.  In 
the  former  case,  the  running  had  no  resemblance  to  the  cloud. 
In  the  latter  case,  my  carrying  an  umbrella  was  like  the  other 
man's  carrying  the  umbrella ;  yet  under  another  sky  the  sight 
of  a  man  carrying  an  umbrella  would  not  have  been  followed 
by  my  carrying  an  umbrella,  but  by  my  guying  the  man  for 
taking  needless  trouble. 

Whether  in  the  case  of  animate  or  inanimate  suggestion, 
the  possible  variation  of  the  act  following  the  suggestion, 
from  the  occurrence  stimulating  the  suggestion,  points  to  an 
entirely  different  interpretation  from  Tarde's  of  the  relation 
between  social  experiences.  The  alternative  explanation  fol- 
lows this  clue :  A  sentient  act  does  not  necessarily  have  any 
essential  reference  to  the  occurrence  as  such  which  suggested  it 
—  the  cloud,  or  the  man  carrying  the  umbrella.  This  occur- 
rence may  be  merely  a  means  of  starting  a  stream  of  associa- 
tion with  some  object  of  attention  —  the  threatened  rain  —  with 
reference  to  which  the  person  concerned  is  interested  in  order- 
ing his  conduct.  The  consequent  acts  are  therefore  not  willed 
with  reference  to  the  stimulus,  but  with  reference  to  a  situa- 
tion quite  independent  of  the  stimulus.  In  a  word,  we  do 
not  imitate  when  we  duplicate  the  act  of  carrying  an  umbrella ; 
we  judge  a  relation  of  means  to  ends,  and  act  accordingly.  If 
the  reverse  were  the  case,  the  act  w^hich  stimulates  would  be 
the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  the  suggested  act.  This  is  impos- 
sible in  the  case  of  many  suggestions,  and  probable  in  merely 
a  few.  In  the  real  cases  the  stimulus  may  have  all  degrees 
of  remoteness  from  the  end  suggested.    The  consequent  action 


632  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

will  have  a  resemblance  to  the  stimulus  only  in  the  degree  in 
which  the  range  of  choice  is  limited  between  acts  similar  to 
the  one  that  conveyed  the  suggestion,  and  alternative  means 
for  attaining  the  corresponding  ends. 

Accordingly,  we  may  substitute  for  Tarde's  theorem, 
"  Society  is  imitation,"  the  formula :  The  social  process,  psy- 
chologically considered,  is,  in  the  first  instance,  cumulative 
experience  in  deriving  knowledge  of  means  Hi  to  serve  ends. 
Knowledge  of  such  means,  once  derived,  is  passed  from  indi- 
vidual to  individual,  and  from  generation  to  generation,  by 
various  processes  which  may  be  reduced  to  some  common 
denominator,  say,  ''tradition."  Action  upon  a  stimulus, 
zvhether  social  or  non-social  in  origin,  zvhether  the  action  is 
the  first  or  the  nth  of  its  kind,  is  not  necessarily  imitation  at 
all,  in  the  psychological  sense.  It  is  rather  the  sign  of  a  judg- 
ment, perhaps  original,  perhaps  borrowed,  recapitulated  or 
abbreviated,  of  the  value  of  conduct  zvith  reference  to  an 
implicit  purpose. 

Our  variation  from  Tarde  avoids  both  of  the  ambiguities 
that  we  pointed  out  above.  We  talk,  not  about  the  abstrac- 
tion "  sociality,"  but  about  the  concrete  social  process ;  and 
we  avoid  confounding  the  objective  similarity  of  means  with 
the  subjective  process  which  determined  choice  of  the  means. 

For  instance,  take  the  case  of  buying  a  hat.  Why  buy  it 
at  all?  First,  for  the  sake  of  comfort;  second,  to  satisfy  pre- 
vailing conventional  standards.  I  should  be  "  queer "  if  I 
did  not  wear  one,  and  to  be  "  queer "  is  to  lose  my  personal 
rating,  which  would  be  inconvenient.  My  end,  with  refer- 
ence to  that  class  of  transactions,  is  to  be  both  comfortable 
and  not-queer. 

I  ask  the  dealer  to  show  me  the  hats  that  are  "  in  style." 
Why  do  I  buy  one  of  these?  The  explanation  "to  imitate 
other  people  "  is  too  simple.  The  mere  fact  that  ten  thousand 
other  people  wear  such  hats  is  not  the  irreducible  factor  that 
impels  me  to  join  the  number.     Belief  that  this  is  the  hat  that, 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIAL  CAUSATION  633 

at  least  inconvenience  to  me,  will  attain  the  double  end  for 
which  I  am  considering  hats,  is  the  more  ultimate  explanation. 

My  implied  reasoning  during  the  transaction  is  this :  First 
(assuming  that  the  comfort  element  is  negligible),  it  is  expedi- 
ent to  "  fix  "  public  opinion,  by  showing  that  I  am  up  to  date 
in  clothes;  second,  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  this  is  the 
up-to-date  hat;  ergo,  this  is  the  hat  with  which  I  can  gain 
my  end,^^ 

That  there  is  a  large  element  of  reasoning  in  the  supposed 
cases  of  imitation  —  even  in  case  of  the  most  slavish  con- 
formity to  fashion —  must  be  inferred  from  such  considera- 
tions as  the  following:  No  dictator  of  fashion,  not  even  the 
King,  could  get  people  to  duplicate  his  pattern  by  an  open  and 
direct:  "Here,  imitate  me!"  If  he  attempts  anything 
bizarre,  like  the  double-creased  trousers  or  the  bell-crowned 
white  silk  hat,  a  few  professional  imitators  will  follow  his 
example.  The  rest  of  the  world  will  demand:  "Cut  bono? 
Is  there  any  sense  in  the  innovation  ?  "  Unless  it  appears  that 
the  proposition  meets  some  sense  of  utility,  there  will  be  rejec- 
tion rather  than  adoption  of  it. 

In  short,  objective  repetition  of  acts  does  not  prove  the 
subjective  phenomena  of  imitation  as  their  cause.  The  more 
general  cause  is  a  judgment  of  utility  pointing  to  choice  of 
the  external  act  as  a  means  to  an  end.  Psychologically  the 
process  is  essentially  the  same,  zvhether  the  particular  judg- 
ment involved  is  immediate  and  original  and  conscious,  or 
whether  the  act  follows  acquiescence  in  the  judgment  of  inter- 
mediate authorities. 

For  example,  when  I  use  the  multiplication  table,  the  pre- 
sumptions prompting  me  to  the  action  are  not  exhausted  by 
the  mere  cumulation  of  precedent.  I  do  not  use  it  simply 
because  other  people  before  me  have  used  it,  but  because  it 
has  been  sufficiently  tested  so  that  I  can  afford  to  assume  that  it 

"  It  would  seem  that  Tarde  himself  would  have  reached  this  same  explana- 
tion, if  he  had  not  been  held  back  by  allegiance  to  the  imitation  hypothesis 
(e.  g.,  ibid.,  pp.  193-212). 


634  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

serves  its  purpose  of  summing  up  accurate  calculations.  I 
may  rest  assured  once  for  all  that  the  truth  of  the  multiplica- 
tion table  has  been  irrefutably  established;  and  it  would  be 
a  waste  of  time  for  me  to  treat  it  as  an  open  question.  I  use 
the  multiplication  table  as  a  means  of  getting  results.  It  is 
a  logical  rather  than  a  "  simian "  procedure,  as  distinctly  as 
it  would  be  if  I  should  find  myself  in  the  heart  of  China,  and 
should  be  obliged  to  invent  a  sign-language  to  express  my 
wants.  The  code  that  I  might  hit  upon  would  be  a  rational 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  no  less  than  the  devices  were  by 
which  northern  and  southern  prisoners,  during  our  Civil  War, 
exploited  unheard-of  methods  of  escape. 

Tarde  has  not  merely  failed  to  find  the  distinctively  social 
phenomenon,  but  in  attempting  to  do  so  he  has  introduced 
confusion  into  the  elements  of  psychology.  So  far  as  the 
mere  mechanism  of  mental  action  is  concerned,  it  makes  no 
difference  whether  the  object  of  attention  is  a  mountain  range 
or  a  court  of  law.  The  ground-plan  of  the  mind's  action  is 
one  and  the  same,  whether  the  suggestion  that  rouses  the 
action  comes  from  things  or  persons.  The  variations  in  the 
mind's  action  are  due  to  variations  of  relation,  of  which  the 
mind  is  conscious,  between  itself  and  the  objects  of  attention. 
If  Crusoe  had  landed  on  his  solitary  island  without  retaining 
a  memory  of  his  fellow-men,  but  with  his  mental  traits  other- 
wise unchanged,  his  mind,  in  knowing  and  feeling  and  willing 
in  adjustment  to  his  surroundings,  would  have  gone  through 
the  elements  of  all  the  processes  that  the  Kaiser's  mind  goes 
through  in  adjusting  himself  to  his  social  environment.  The 
knowing  and  feeling  and  willing  that  we  do  in  the  social 
process  differ  in  their  content,  not  in  their  method,  from  our 
mental  actions  when  stimulated  solely  by  things. 

Accordingly,  it  is  a  mistake  to  base  social  psychology  upon 
a  supposed  antithesis  between  the  forms  of  mental  process  con- 
cerned in  social  and  non-social  actions.  Psychical  reactions 
incident  to  the  social  process  are  radically  the  same  reactions 
that  occur  in  the  purely  individual  process,  so  far  as  the  latter 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIAL  CAUSATION  635 

ever  occurs.  Permutation  of  the  prime  factors  of  mental 
action  occurs,  both  in  the  individual  and  in  association  of  indi- 
viduals, through  the  conflict  or  conjunction  of  valuations  and 
of  purposes.  The  social  process  is  a  co-operative  formation 
of  judgments  of  value,  and  a  continuous  reckoning  between 
persons  whose  purposes,  because  of  similar  or  dissimilar  judg- 
ments of  value,  more  or  less  conflict.  The  questions  of  social 
psychology  begin  therefore  with  the  phenomena  of  actual 
judgments.  What  judgments  about  their  situation  are  passed 
by  the  persons  in  a  given  association;  i,  e.,  what  are  the 
standards  of  value  that  are  held?  How  does  it  come  about 
that  such  judgments  exist?  What  alternative  or  modifying 
judgments  are  represented  in  the  association?  What  do  the 
actions  of  the  members  of  the  association  show  about  these 
judgments,  both  as  causes  and  effects?  What  conditions, 
either  physical  or  psychical,  are  tending  to  confirm  or  to 
weaken  these  judgments?  Why  do  some  of  the  members  of 
the  association  entertain  exceptional  judgments  of  value? 
What  are  the  comparative  effects  of  the  similar  and  the  dis- 
similar standards  held  by  different  members  of  the  associa- 
tion? How,  and  to  what  extent,  are  the  standards  of  value 
prevalent  in  this  association  affected  by  the  standards  of  other 
associations  ? 

In  one  respect  Tarde  has  performed  an  invaluable  work. 
He  has  shown,  more  clearly  than  anyone  else,  that  the  social 
process  assimilates  enormous  quantities  of  valuations  passed 
by  predecessors,  and  acted  upon  as  fixed  conclusions  and  pre- 
scriptions while  experience  sufficient  to  warrant  other  con- 
clusions is  being  gathered.  The  name  which  he  has  given  to 
this  universal  fact  —  "imitation"  —  is  an  impertinence,  so  far 
as"  it  purports  to  be  a  psychological  explanation.  The  real 
explanation  must  be  found  in  the  laws  of  human  judgment 
with  reference  to  relations,  not  in  a  prevalence  of  some  single 
mental  process.  The  beginnings  of  this  real  explanation  have 
hardly  been  made.  We  are  fairly  stating  the  problems,  and 
it  is  to  be  expected  that  the  immediate  future  will  show  more 


636  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

progress  toward  solutions  than  has  been  made  in  the  whole 
previous  history  of  the  social  sciences. 

We  have  given  so  much  time  to  Tarde,  not  because  he 
is  destined  to  hold  the  permanent  place  in  sociological  theory 
which  premature  admiration  has  assigned,  but  because  his 
most  original  hypothesis  is  a  first-rate  case  of  a  type  of  inter- 
pretation to  be  shunned,  and  because  it  may  be  used  as  a  foil 
to  set  off  the  principle  which  we  have  to  suggest  as  a  base-line 
in  social  interpretation. 

The  mistake  of  Tarde  in  locating  the  essential  social  fac- 
tor in  a  single  form  of  mental  action,  instead  of  in  some  total 
assertion  of  personality,  is  sufficiently  conspicuous  to  serve 
as  a  perpetual  injunction  upon  similar  ventures.  There  is  no 
visible  sanction  for  the  hope  that  a  clue  to  the  social  process 
will  ever  be  found  in  a  simple  mental  reaction. 

Doubtless  both  things  and  persons  sometimes  stimulate 
consciousness  so  imperfectly  that  no  complete  mental  action 
follows,  but  the  experience  of  men  in  society  is  not  bounded 
by  occurrences  of  that  abortive  type.  Men  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
tread  the  stage  of  life  in  a  dream.  If  they  are  not  socially  con- 
scious, they  are  at  least  self-conscious.  They  act  for  reasons, 
although  not  necessarily  for  good  reasons,  socially  consid- 
ered, nor  with  far-reaching  vision  of  the  scope  of  the  reasons. 
In  contrast  with  Tarde's  hypothesis,  and  with  the  whole 
genus  of  single-reaction  explanations  of  which  it  is  a  type, 
we  urge  that  the  characteristic  factor  in  the  psychological 
element  of  the  social  process,  as  distinguished  from  the  bio- 
logical element,  is  selection  of  ends.  Every  effort  to  locate 
the  distinctively  social  factor  in  a  state  or  motion  of  conscious- 
ness less  complex  and  complete  than  acts  of  combined  atten- 
tion, valuation,  and  choice,  foolishly  tempts  fate. 

Sentient  action  is  action  directed  toward  ends.  Explana- 
tion of  the  social  process  in  terms  of  stimulus  alone,  or  of 
reflex  action  alone,  or  of  subjective  change  alone,  without  ref- 
erence to  purpose  and  volition  in  view  of  a  purpose,  is  irre- 
sponsible  speculation.     The   observable   actions   of   men   are 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIAL  CAUSATION  637 

exhibits  of  their  choices,  and  circumstantial  evidence  of  the 
purposes  behind  the  choices.  The  metaphysical  question, 
Why  do  men  posit  purposes  ?  is  beyond  the  scope  both  of  soci- 
ology and  of  psychology.  Without  attempting  to  go  behind 
the  apparent  purposes  which  observed  men  cherish,  a  division 
of  labor  between  sociology  and  psychology  may  succeed  in 
assigning  sufficient  reasons  for  choices  related  to  those  pur- 
poses. At  all  events,  this  is  the  interpretation  of  the  social 
process  toward  which  positive  analysis  presses.  Our  knowl- 
edge converges  in  the  direction  of  the  questions:  What  pur- 
poses are  in  the  minds  of  the  persons  concerned?  and,  What 
is  the  meaning  of  the  choices  they  make  zvith  reference  to 
those  purposes? 

The  social  process  is  not  an  automatic  response  to  stimu- 
lus. It  is  a  perpetual  adjustment  of  persons  to  each  other 
incidental  to  their  choices  of  means  to  promote  their  individual 
purposes.  Since  we  cannot  answer  the  question.  Why  do 
persons  have  purposes  at  all?  our  limit  in  explaining  the 
social  process  is  generalization  of  regularities  in  the  phe- 
nomena of  human  choice.  When  we  talk  of  social  psy- 
chology, then,  we  do  not  refer  to  supposed  facts  of  mind,  the 
elements  of  which  escape  the  ken  of  psychology  proper.  We 
refer  to  observed  uniformities  of  objective  choices  in  typical 
concrete  situations.  In  other  words,  the  only  conceivable 
function  for  social  psychology,  in  distitiction  from  psychology 
proper,  is  calctdus  of  variations  of  ultimate  purposes,  and  of 
specific  choices,  in  the  actual  conditions  of  human  life.  The 
problem  of  social  psychology  is  to  generalise  the  situations 
in  which  choices  have  to  be  made,  and  to  generalise  the  cor- 
responding choices.  That  is,  after  human  experience  is  formu- 
lated in  terms  of  structure,  and  of  function,  and  of  process, 
we  have  only  formulations  of  effects.  The  causes  of  these 
effects,  so  far  as  we  can  trace  them,  are  the  volitions  that 
register  the  resultant  of  purpose  and  feeling  and  choice.  The 
restatement  of  the  social  process  in  terms  of  purpose  and 
choice  is  social  psychology. ^^ 

"Cf.  chap.   14. 


638  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

A  passage  occurs  in  Professor  Miinsterberg's  latest  book 
which  seems  to  imply  precisely  the  view  that  we  are  try- 
ing to  express.  It  is  an  account  of  a  talk  with  a  man  not 
named,  but  apparently  the  speaker  was  John  Fiske.  We  quote : 

I  remember  still  every  word  of  a  fine  talk  which  he  and  I  had  last 
June  on  a  beautiful  summer  evening  at  the  seashore.  He  had  just  been 
reading  much  of  Buckle  and  Spencer  and  Comte  and  of  the  more  modern 
positivists  and  sociologists.  He  had  needed  the  material  for  an  address 
he  wanted  to  deliver  on  the  task  of  the  historian,  and  he  came  to  me  to 
talk  it  all  over.  Oh,  he  felt  so  wearied,  he  said,  as  if  he  had  walked 
through  a  desert  into  which  the  flourishing  landscape  of  history  had  been 
transformed.  No  doubt,  he  exclaimed,  we  can  treat  the  whole  world's 
history,  and  the  struggles  of  the  nations,  and  the  development  of  individual 
great  men,  as  if  it  were  all  nothing  but  a  big  causal  mechanism,  wherein 
everything  is  understoood  when  it  is  explained,  and  wherein  the  natural 
factors  of  race-disposition  and  climate,  of  market  and  food,  determine  fate. 
Of  course,  for  certain  purposes  we  must  do  so,  and  must  demand  of  dry, 
stubborn  laws  that  they  express  the  richness  of  five  thousand  years  of 
history.  Then  it  is  necessity  which  turns  the  crank  of  the  historical 
machine  to  produce  ever  new  repetitions.  But  all  this  is  after  all  merely 
natural  science;    the  spark  of  history  is  quenched. 

To  the  eye  of  history  man  is  not  a  thing  which  is  moved,  but  a  creator 
in  freedom,  and  the  whole  world's  history  is  a  story  of  mutual  will- 
influences.  If  I  study  history,  I  am  doing  it  to  understand  what  the  will- 
demands  of  living  men  mean.  I  stand  before  an  endless  manifoldness  of 
political  and  legal  and  social  and  intellectual  will-demands  from  the 
people  with  whom  I  come  in  contact.  Each  one  compels  acknowledgment, 
each  one  demands  agreement  or  disagreement,  obedience  or  combat;  and 
my  whole  historical  life  is  just  the  chain  of  my  attitudes  toward  those  will- 
demands.  I  have  to  respect  the  laws  of  my  country,  the  political  existence 
of  other  nations,  the  customs  and  convictions  of  my  time ;  I  have  to 
choose  between  political  parties  and  scientific  theories  and  aesthetic  schools 
and  religious  denominations ;  I  have  to  sympathize  with  reforms  and  to 
fight  crimes.  And  yet  those  individuals  who  represent  the  claims  of  the 
country,  or  the  rights  of  other  people,  or  the  theories  of  the  schools,  have 
not  invented  the  demands  with  which  they  approach  one.  Each  one  of 
their  demands  refers  again  to  the  demands  of  their  predecessors  and  their 
ancestors.  The  whole  historic  configuration  of  our  politics  and  law  and 
science  and  art  and  religion  is  thus  a  system  of  will-demands  which  asks 
for  our  free  decision,  but  which  in  itself  points  backward  at  every  point  to 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SOCIAL  CAUSATION  639 

other  subjecis  of  will,  and  these  others  again  refer  to  others.     This  whole 
mighty  system  of  will-reference  is  what  we  call  human  history. 

Thus  we  talked  it  over  for  hours,  and  it  was  a  delight  to  listen  to  his 
enthusiasm  for  the  thoughts  of  such  men  as  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  and 
above  all  of  the  great  Fichte,  as  he  contrasted  it  with  the  positivistic  super- 
ficiality which  he  had  found  in  the  sociological  books.  I  remember  how 
he,  late  that  night,  left  my  piazza  with  the  laughing  words :  "  Believe  me, 
from  the  pair  in  Paradise  of  old  to  the  eighty  millions  in  our  new  Paradise, 
the   world's    history   means    the   will-connections    of    free   personalities." " 

We  do  not  by  any  means  admit  that  the  interpretation  of 
recent  sociology,  imphed  in  the  depreciating  epithets  in  the 
passage,  is  just.  On  the  whole,  the  sociologists  have  done 
their  part  to  show  that  the  most  significant  factors  of  life  are 
the  work  of  mind,  not  the  grinding  of  machinery.  At  the 
same  time,  we  must  protest  against  the  tendency  to  accept 
interpretations  in  terms  of  mental  action  which  is  merely  a 
process  analogous  with  a  mechanical  process.  The  real 
explanation  must  be  found  in  the  spiritual  initiative  which  is 
superior  to  mechanical  causation. 

"  The  Eternal  Life,  p.  30. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  INITIAL  PROBLEMS  OF  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY' 

On  the  basis  of  the  propositions  in  chap.  39,  we  proceed  to 
point  out  that  the  task  of  scholars  zvho  undertake  to  explain 
the  social  process  as  a  system  of  psychical  causes  and  effects 
is  to  restate  the  social  process  as  an  evolving  hierarchy  of 
purposes. 

Assuming  a  fairly  complete  descriptive  analysis  of  the 
social  process,  along  the  lines  drawn  in  Parts  IV  and  V,  prog- 
ress toward  causal  interpretation  of  the  same  phenomena  must 
depend  on  success  in  making  out  the  purposes  entertained  by 
the  individuals  at  each  stage  of  the  process. 

The  task  of  explanation  in  this  sense  may  be  likened  to 
that  of  an  expert  in  general  physics,  set  down  in  the  town  of 
Essen  with  the  problem  of  accounting  for  the  evolution  of 
the  Krupp  plant  as  an  organization  of  mechanical  forces. 
Why  physical  agents,  whose  universal  properties  physics 
explains,  should  have  become  correlated  as  they  appear  in  the 
Krupp  establishment,  is  a  question  that  physics  alone  cannot 
solve.  Physics  can  speak  merely  of  the  phenomena  that  are 
fundamental  to  one  prime  factor  in  the  operation.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  purposes  in  the  minds  of  the  men  who  made  the 
plant  goes  back  to  the  causes  which,  for  our  present  use,  must 
be  regarded  as  ultimate.  The  whole  explanation  turns  then 
upon  ability  to  understand  the  scale  of  specific  desires  in  the 
minds  of  the  different  persons  who  contribute  to  the  result. 

From  the  setting  up  of  the  first  forge  in  Essen,  to  the  turn- 
ing out  of  the  last  propeller  shaft  or  monster  gun,  the  psychic 
element  of  the  explanation  must  begin  with  the  reactions,  in 
the  form  of  purpose,  which  occurred  in  the  minds  of  indi- 

*  Cf.  Ellwood,  "  Prolegomena  to  Social  Psychology,"  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  656,  807  ;    Vol.  V,  pp.  98-220. 

640 


THE  INITIAL   PROBLEMS   OF   SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY    641 

viduals,  in  view  of  the  relation  between  conditions  and  desires 
in  the  experience  of  the  individuals  from  situation  to  situation. 

We  have  no  present  concern  with  the  question  :  Why  are 
valuations  followed  by  volitions  in  the  general  direction  of 
the  valuations?  This  is  a  sub-sociological  problem  which  we 
need  not  undertake.  We  begin  with  the  fact  of  valuations, 
and  the  certainty  that  choices  of  some  degree  of  energy  cor- 
respond to  them.  Serious  interpretation  of  any  social  occur- 
rence, or  of  a  great  combination  of  social  occurrences,  must 
therefore  consist  primarily  of  formulation  of  the  individual 
purposes,  or  of  the  socialized  concert  of  purposes,  of  which 
the  occurrences  are  the  expression. 

For  instance,  to  explain  why  members  of  the  French 
Chamber  of  Deputies  fight  alleged  duels,  and  members  of  the 
American  House  of  Representatives  do  not,  we  must  go  back 
at  last  to  a  comparison  of  those  things  which  the  two  types 
of  men  hold  to  be  worth  doing,  and  of  the  means  which  they 
respectively  believe  to  be  adequate  to  accomplish  those  things. 
To  explain  why  Americans  will  the  separation  of  Church  and 
State,  while  Englishmen  will  the  persistence  of  the  Establish- 
ment, we  have  the  problem  of  making  out  two  complex  sys- 
tems of  valuations,  one  of  which  requires  a  voluntary  system, 
and  the  other  a  governmental  system  of  means  for  attaining 
its  end. 

The  two  widely  different  orders  of  illustration  just  used 
are  indexes  of  the  universal  problem  of  social  explanation. 
Whether  we  are  seeking  the  reason  for  a  custom  in  a  savage 
tribe,  for  an  institution  in  Greece  or  Rome,  for  one  of  the 
great  historic  revolutions,  or  for  the  conflict  of  interests  in 
a  modern  State,  in  so  far  as  we  assume  that  a  sentient  factor 
was  involved  at  all,  our  primary  task  is  to  make  out  how  the 
persons  concerned  represented  their  situation  to  themselves, 
what  purposes  they  formed  with  respect  to  their  situation,  and 
what  means  seemed  to  them  available  for  accomplishing  their 
purposes. 

It  is  true  that  every  writer  of  history,   from  Herodotus 


642  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

down,  has  in  a  way  acted  upon  this  assumption.  Everybody 
who  tries  to  explain  human  actions  tries  to  account  for  the 
actions  by  motives.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  true  that,  until 
a  quarter-century  ago,  the  idea  of  stating  problems  of  regu- 
larity in  the  operation  of  motives  in  form  for  inductive  inves- 
tigation is  not  known  to  have  presented  itself  distinctly  to 
anybody's  mind.  We  have  therefore  as  yet  no  accepted  gen- 
eralizations of  the  operations  of  motives  in  concrete  situations. 

It  would  be  presumptuous  to  claim  that  we  shall  ever 
have  such  generalizations,  supported  by  a  sufficient  induction 
to  make  them  convincing.  A  respectable  number  of  men, 
however,  who  have  earned  the  right  to  an  opinion  by  diligent 
study  of  the  social  process,  think  it  is  not  Quixotic  to  believe 
that  important  generalizations  in  this  field  may  gradually  be 
reached;  i.  e.,  that,  by  following  valid  methods  of  research, 
we  may  advance  from  everyday  knowledge  of  human  nature 
to  theorems  of  regularities  in  human  choice  which  will  be 
approximately  exact,  and  will  cover  large  areas  of  social 
action.^ 

When  ive  attempt  to  explain  the  social  process  —  i.  e.,  to 
go  back  one  step  beyond  the  statement  of  human  experience  in 
terms  of  process,  to  restatement  of  it  in  terms  of  purpose  — 
our  problem  is,  in  a  word,  to  generalize  the  purpose-reactions 
that  occur  in  typical  situations.  The  most  general  classifica- 
tion of  cases  is  into  two  groups;  i.  e.,  first,  cases  in  which 
mass-valuations  are  adopted  by  the  individual ;    second,  cases 

'  Professor  Durkheim's  studies  of  suicide  may  be  noted  as  strictly  legiti- 
mate projects  of  research  in  this  direction.  The  method  which  he  illustrates 
may  well  be  set  down  as  calculated  to  yield  important  material  for  social 
psychology.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Professor  Giddings'  attempts  to  make 
out  marks  of  social  classes  {Inductive  Sociology,  Part  IV,  chap.  3),  As  this 
classification  stands,  it  looks  entirely  static.  The  classification  would  not  have 
been  made,  however,  without  some  calculation  of  dynamic  factors,  and  th« 
more  it  is  analyzed,  the  more  certainly  will  it  pass  into  measurement  of  the 
functional  action  of  purposes.  Eijually  important  in  application  to  another 
kind  of  material  are  the  studies  of  the  savage  mind,  primarily  from  the  stand- 
point of  occupation,  by  Professors  Dewey  and  Thomas. 


J 


THE  INITIAL  PROBLEMS  OF  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY    643 

in  which  iudividual  valuations  are  communicated  to  the  mass.^ 
We  have  accordingly  the  main  questions :  Through  what 
appeal  to  interest  does  a  group-purpose  come  to  be  adopted  as 
an  individual  purpose?  and,  Through  what  appeal  to  interest 
does  an  individual  purpose  come  to  be  adopted  as  a  group- 
purpose  ?  '* 

As  we  have  intimated  above,  the  task  of  working  out  a 
psychological  restatement  of  the  social  process  inductively 
calls  for  isolation  of  actual  cases  of  individual  modification  by 
the  group,  and  of  group-modification  by  the  individual.  If 
generalization  of  what  actually  takes  place  in  such  cases  proves 
to  be  possible,  it  will  give  to  the  phrase  "  social  psychology  " 
a  real  content. 

Professor  Giddings  has  published  a  series  of  brilliant  gen- 
eralizations in  social  psychology.^  Whether  they  are  valid  or 
not,  they  do  not  purport  to  be  formulas  in  terms  of  purpose, 
which  we  assert  to  be  necessary  to  satisfy  the  demand  for 
psychological  explanation.  They  are  formulas  of  sequences 
to  be  explained.  That  is,  they  are  all  expressions  of  social 
regularities  about  which  our  present  aim  is  to  know,  not  what 
occurs  —  this  is  stated  in  the  formulas  —  but  why  it  occurs, 
in  terms  of  the  purposes  that  account  for  regularities.  Our 
comment  does  not  challenge  the  value  in  principle  of  the  gen- 
eralizations cited.  We  simply  urge  that,  supposing  they  stand, 
and  many  more  are  added  to  them,  they  after  all  merely  pre- 
sent the  problem  of  interpretation;  they  contain  nothing  that 
expressly  alleges  an  explanation,   although   several  of  them 

'  Cf.   Kistiakowski,   Gesellschaft  und  Einselwesen,  pp.    144   f. 

*  Professor  Ross's  Social  Control  is  a  first-rate  contribution  to  analysis  of 
the  former  situation.  Each  of  the  forms  of  social  control  which  he  discusses 
presents  its  own  type  of  problems  in  social  psychology.  In  the  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  XI,  p.  49,  Professor  Ellwood  deals  with  a  typical 
problem  of  this  order,  under  the  title  "  A  Psychological  Theory  of  Revolutions." 
The  most  ambitious  attempt  at  psychological  interpretation  of  actual  modifi- 
cations of  institutions  is  Tarde's  Les  transformations  du  pouvoir, 

^Elements  of  Sociology,  pp.  128,  137,  139,  140,  154,  168,  171,  192,  215, 
219,   221,   230,   352. 


644  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

suggest  a  thesis  that  might  be  proposed  in  terms  of  purpose 
by  way  of  interpretation.^ 

Not  to  go  so  far  afield  as  GaHleo's  swinging  lamp,  or 
Newton's  apple,  or  Franklin's  kite,  or  Stephenson's  tea-kettle, 
the  analogy  of  most  of  the  productive  work  in  the  exact 
sciences  should  warn  us  that  progress  in  social  psychology  is 
likely  to  appear  after  we  are  humble  enough  to  learn  from 
the  trivial  and  the  commonplace.  The  clue  to  the  whole  range 
of  psychological  interpretation  may  be  found,  for  instance, 
in  such  a  homely  occurrence  as  the  change  of  a  country  boy 
into  a  city  man,  or  of  an  Oxford  master  of  arts  into  an 
Arizona  cowboy.  Through  what  succession  of  situations,  and 
what  variation  of  choices  in  view  of  the  situations,  did  the 
one  type  merge  into  the  other?  So  of  a  preacher  becoming  a 
gambler,  and  vice  versa;  a  college  professor  ending  as  a 
farmer;  a  lawyer  graduating  into  the  practice  of  medicine; 
a  capitalist  turning  into  a  socialist,  and  vice  versa.  In  each 
case  successive  alternatives  presented  themselves  for  choice. 
What  is  the  formula  of  the  choices  which  each  individual 
made,  and  toward  what  more  general  formula  of  the  relation 
of  situation  to  choice  do  these  cases  point? 

We  may  illustrate  the  other  class  of  cases  in  equally  com- 
monplace instances.  Through  what  combinations  of  appeals 
to  interest  does  a  free-rum  town  or  state  adopt  high  license 
or  prohibition,  or  vice  versa?  How,  in  terms  of  converging 
choices,  does  it  come  to  pass  that  a  teamsters'  union  assimi- 
lates some  thousands  of  isolated  drivers?  How  does  a  town 
decide  to  admit  or  exclude  Sunday  theaters  or  baseball 
games?  How  does  a  town  resolve  upon  definite  change  of 
group-action  with  reference  to  sanitary,  or  artistic,  or  educa- 
tional, or  economic,  or  political  improvement?  Toward  what 
formulas  of  relations  between  the  different  objective  and  sub- 
jective factors  involved  in  the  consensus  of  many  individuals 
do  such  cases  point?  It  would  be  worse  than  useless  to  claim 
that  precise  answers  to  such  questions  are  in  sight.     Social 

•  E.  g.,  pp.   i68,  215,  219,  221,  352. 


THE  INITIAL  PROBLEMS  OF  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY    645 

psychology  is  at  present  a  desideratum  rather  than  a  reahty. 
It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  it  can  ever  be  more  than  a 
formal  expression  of  relations  between  individual  and  social 
ends,  on  the  one  hand,  and  choices,  on  the  other.  Possibly 
the  relations  can  never  be  reduced  to  formulas  of  approximate 
regularity,  or  to  theorems  that  will  be  of  value  in  judging 
probabilities  of  conduct,  or  lines  of  least  resistance  in  applying 
social  forces. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  a  confession  of  unfaith  in 
the  universality  of  cause  and  effect  in  the  world,  if  we  doubted 
that  every  human  choice  has  an  explanation,  as  an  effort  to 
adapt  means  to  ends.  It  does  not  seem  altogether  chimerical 
to  hope  that  regularities  in  human  choice  may,  in  time,  be 
sufficiently  made  out  to  constitute  approximate  explanations 
and  predictions  of  considerable  fractions  of  social  action. 

Meanwhile,  it  would  tend  to  clear  needless  obstacles  from 
the  path  of  this  progress,  if  common  consent  could  be  gained 
to  co-operate,  so  far  as  feasible,  in  dispelling  the  mistiness 
that  surrounds  the  phrase  "  social  psychology."  Sociologists 
and  psychologists  have  thus  far  failed  to  reach  the  sort  of 
understanding  about  border  problems,  and  division  of  labor, 
which  would  best  economize  the  work  of  both. 

As  in  every  such  case,  approximate  statements  of  marginal 
problems  between  psychology  and  sociology  have  been  made, 
and  ambitious  explanations  have  been  offered,  by  thinkers 
who  may  not  have  had  the  confidence  of  trained  investigators 
in  either  field.  The  situation  might  be  described  by  the 
unconvinced  as  an  attempt  to  make  something  out  of  nothing. 
On  the  one  hand  is  unauthorized  sociology;  on  the  other 
hand,  amateur  psychology.  The  fusion  of  the  two  is  sup- 
posed to  deserve  scientific  recognition  as  the  superior  of  both. 

The  situation  is  hardly  improved  in  the  cases  in  which 
scholars  competent  on  one  or  the  other  side  of  the  line  have 
seemed  to  attempt  to  stretch  their  credit  so  as  to  cover  claims 
beyond  their  proper  competence.  While  the  psychologists 
have  rightly  enough  declined  to  respect  apparent  attempts  to 


646  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

make  sociological  evidence  answer  psychological  questions, 
and  while  the  sociologists  have  been  right  in  saying  that  there 
is  a  whole  range  of  psychical  relations  in  the  social  process 
which  the  psychologists  do  not  seem  to  have  discovered, 
co-operation  between  psychologists  and  sociologists  in  work- 
ing this  border  territory  has  been  postponed. 

The  ambiguity  of  the  phrase  "social  psychology"  has 
doubtless  had  something  to  do  with  this  arrest  of  develop- 
ment. On  the  one  hand,  it  has  been  suspected  of  standing  for 
a  misdirected  ambition  to  create  a  quasi-psychological  some- 
thing to  occupy  a  place  which  psychology  alone  could  fill. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  has  beguiled  some  men  into  contentment 
with  mere  description,  in  terms  of  mental  processes,  while  the 
phenomena  described  threw  no  new  light  upon  psychological 
analysis  of  the  processes,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  did  the 
processes  referred  to  do  much  toward  explaining  the  phe- 
nomena. 

A  mere  name  may  easily  be  rated  either  above  or  below 
its  actual  significance.  Use  or  disuse  of  a  phrase  does  not 
solve  a  scientific  problem.  If,  however,  a  phrase  in  any  way 
embarrasses  formulation  of  problems,  or  employment  of  the 
most  appropriate  methods  for  approaching  solutions,  the 
phrase  cannot  be  too  soon  dropped  from  use. 

If  this  proves  to  be  the  case  with  the  phrase  '*  social  psy- 
chology," there  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  insisting  upon 
retaining  it.  The  main  thing  is  the  progress  of  knowledge, 
not  the  vindication  of  a  label.  If  it  would  in  any  way  pro- 
mote positive  investigation  of  social  cause  and  effect  to  aban- 
don the  term  "  social  psychology,"  there  should  be  no  hesita- 
tion between  the  substance  and  the  shadow. 

Suppose  we  should  go  back  to  Lester  F.  Ward's  phrase, 
and,  without  attempting  to  delimit  and  name  a  science  before 
it  exists,  should  say  that,  when  we  undertake  explanation  of 
the  social  process,  we  encounter  the  task  of  making  out  "  the 
psychic  factors  "  in  the  process.  This  statement  of  the  situa- 
tion involves  no  prejudgment  of  the  method  or  of  the  division 


I 


THE  INITIAL   PROBLEMS  OF  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY    647 

of  labor  that  will  be  involved  in  solving  the  problems  pre- 
sented. Phenomena  of  the  transmission  and  transformation 
of  psychic  force  are  to  be  observed  throughout  the  social 
process.  Work  for  both  psychologist  and  sociologist  is  evi- 
dently ahead,  and  the  technical  problems  encountered  in  the 
task,  not  squatter  sovereignty  over  the  territory  in  which  the 
tasks  are  found,  will  at  last  determine  the  actual  division  of 
labor  in  reaching  explanations. 

In  either  type  of  social  reaction  referred  to  above/  two 
distinct  factors  are  present.  When,  for  instance.  Count 
Tolstoi  exchanges  his  career  of  an  aristocratic  soldier  for  that 
of  a  democratic  doctrinaire,  or  when  the  American  people 
turn  from  isolation  to  expansion,  the  occasion  is  a  social  situa- 
tion confronting  one  mind  or  many  minds;  and  choices  are 
made  by  the  one  mind  or  the  many  minds  with  reference  to 
the  situation.  It  is  perfectly  clear  that  these  two  elements  in 
the  phenomena  are  not  of  co-ordinate  interest  to  psycholo- 
gist and  sociologist.  Social  situations  as  such  do  not  interest 
the  psychologist;  and  the  mental  series,  as  such,  between  the 
image  of  reality  which  the  mind  forms,  and  the  choice  or 
volition  which  presently  follows,  does  not  interest  the  sociolo- 
gist. But  everybody,  irrespective  of  label,  has  at  least  a  latent 
interest  in  knowing,  if  possible,  why  a  particular  choice,  either 
of  one  person  or  of  many  persons,  occurs  in  view  of  a  par- 
ticular situation.  How  much  of  the  explanation  will  ulti- 
mately be  found  on  the  side  of  the  external  situation,  and  how 
much  on  the  side  of  the  subjective  reaction,  nobody  can  fore- 
tell. What  ratio  of  contribution  to  the  explanation  will  be 
made  respectively  by  psychologist  and  sociologist,  it  would  be 
impertinent  to  guess.  At  all  events,  is  should  be  perfectly 
plain  that  the  present  frontier  of  sociological  inquiry  reaches 
this  problem:  What  are  the  laivs  of  cause  and  effect  betzvecn 
social  situations  and  the  minds  that  encounter  the  situations? 

The  sociologist  takes  it  for  granted  that  consciousness  of 
an  interest,  of  any  sort,  is  presently  followed  by  a  choice  that 

'  Pp.  642,  643. 


64^  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

has  reference  to  that  interest.  He  does  not  concern  himself 
with  the  process  of  transmutation  in  consciousness  from  the 
perceptive  to  the  volitional  attitude.  He  does  not  care,  pro- 
fessionally, whether  the  consciousness  series  is  one  and  the 
same  or  widely  different  in  the  cases  of  a  burned  child  dread- 
ing the  fire,  and  of  an  oppressed  nation  uniting-  for  revolution. 
He  starts  rather  with  the  assumption  that  perception  of  con- 
ditions is  always  followed  by  choices  of  some  sort;  and  his 
interest  is  in  discovering  what  variations  in  social  situations 
have  to  do  with  human  choices. 

The  sociological  interest  at  this  point,  then,  is  in  the  con- 
tent rather  than  the  subjective  process  of  choice.  The  ques- 
tion why  there  is  any  choice  at  all  in  view  of  a  social  situation 
would  lead  far  beyond  sociological  competence.  Since  men 
do  choose  and  will,  however,  the  sociologist  confronts  the 
task  of  generalizing  social  situations  in  such  a  way  that 
observed  phenomena  of  choice  may  be  expressed  in  terms  of 
the  human  interests  in  reaction  with  the  situations. 

Thus  the  question  which  the  sociologist  raises  is,  on  the 
one  hand,  strictly  sociological ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  involves 
the  teleology  of  the  actors  in  social  situations,  and  this  is 
really  the  undivided  middle  ground  which  might  or  might 
not  with  advantage  be  turned  over  to  a  sub-science  not  yet 
proposed;  while  at  the  other  end  the  problem  necessarily 
becomes  at  last  purely  psychological,  when  it  calls  for  com- 
parison of  reactions  in  different  persons  under  similar  con- 
ditions. Causal  explanation  of  the  social  process,  as  far  back 
as  the  sociologist  tries  to  carry  it,  would  consist  of  supplying 
concrete  values  for  the  symbolic  terms  in  a  projjosition  of 
this  form  :  The  effective  interests  (purposes)  of  the  actors 
being  such  and  such,  and  the  situation,  as  they  viewed  it,  l)eing 
so  and  so.  their  action  was  this  and  that,  because,  in  their 
belief,  it  would  tend  to  modify  the  situation  thus  and  thus. 

We  might  avoid  some  of  the  vagueness  for  which  the 
phrase  "social  psychology"  has  been  in  part  responsible,  if  we 
could  be  content  to  formulate  our  problems  of  causal  explana- 


THE  INITIAL  PROBLEMS  OF  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY    649 

tion  in  accordance  with  this  schematic  proposition,  and  let 
questions  of  scientific  privilege  take  care  of  themselves.  At  all 
events,  the  appropriate  order  of  procedure,  from  the  socio- 
logical point  of  approach,  is  analysis  of  social  situations,  in 
connection  with  analysis  of  purposes  of  the  persons  involved 
in  the  situations,  to  the  end  of  arriving  at  generalizations  of 
regularities  and  uniformities  of  sequence  between  types  of 
social  situations  and  types  of  human  volitions. 


PART   VIII 

THE   SOCIAL   PROCESS   CONSIDERED   AS   A   SYSTEM   OF 
ETHICAL  PROBLEMS 


CHAPTER   XLI 
CURRENT  CONFUSION  OF  MORAL  STANDARDS 

Modern  men  are  puzzled  and  perplexed  and  baffled  by  the 
incidents  of  their  own  activities.  Political  and  industrial  facts 
are  the  best  illustrations,  but  in  using  them  we  must  insist  that 
they  are  illustrative  merely.  They  are  not  the  whole  or  the 
most  of  life.  The  production  of  wealth  in  prodigious  quanti- 
ties, the  machine-like  integration  of  the  industries,  the  syndi- 
cated control  of  capital  and  the  syndicated  organization  of 
labor,  the  conjunction  of  interests  in  production  and  the  col- 
lision of  interests  in  distribution,  the  widening  chasm  between 
luxury  and  poverty,  the  security  of  the  economically  strong 
and  the  insecurity  of  the  economically  weak,  the  domination  of 
politics  by  pecuniary  interests,  the  growth  of  capitalistic 
world-politics,  the  absence  of  commanding  moral  authority, 
the  well-nigh  universal  instinct  that  there  is  something  wrong 
in  our  social  machinery  and  that  society  is  gravitating  toward 
a  crisis,  the  thousand  and  one  demands  for  reform,  the  futility 
or  fractionality  of  most  ameliorative  programs  —  all  these  are 
making  men  wonder  how  long  we  can  go  on  in  a  fashion  that 
no  one  quite  understands  and  that  everyone  feels  at  liberty  to 
condemn. 

We  live  in  the  most  self-conscious  period  "of  the  world's 
history.  At  the  same  time,  the  people  who  think  about  society 
were  never  more  widely  at  variance.  "What  is  your  life?" 
is  the  old  question  which  every  item  of  social  activity  throws 
back  upon  us  with  an  insistence  that  grows  more  irritating  at 
every  iteration.  Never  has  there  been  so  much  use  for  a  key 
to  the  cipher  that  the  incidents  of  human  life  compose. 

If  sociology  ever  succeeds  in  establishing  itself  as  the  peer 
of  traditional  departments  of  knowledge,  it  will  be  through 
success  in  reading  the  larger  meanings  of  life.    There  are  few 

6S3 


654  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

fractions  of  life  to  which  some  science  is  not  already  dedi- 
cated. The  knowledge  which  these  sciences  gain  may  so 
oppress  us  with  detail  that  life  as  a  whole  may  seem  more  inex- 
plicable with  each  discovery.  Are  we  destined  to  know  so 
many  things  that  deep  insight  and  wide  outlook  will  be  impos- 
sible? The  sociologists  believe  that  a  positive  philosophy  of 
society  may  be  built  up  which  will  indicate  the  value  of  each 
detail  of  life.  The  laws  of  social  growth,  the  meaning  of 
social  events,  the  direction  of  social  tendencies,  the  relative 
worth  of  various  social  activities,  the  technique  of  social 
adjustments,  the  sources  of  social  impulse,  the  direction  of 
rational  social  effort,  are  assumed  to  be  within  the  realm  of 
the  knowable.  They  are  to  be  discovered  in  past  and  present 
human  experience.  They  will  be  made  out,  in  part,  by  fur- 
ther elaboration  of  the  same  material  upon  which  more  special 
social  sciences  labor.  The  knowledge  of  which  the  sociologists 
have  discovered  the  lack  will  not  be  a  mechanical  assembling 
of  parts  produced  by  other  divisions  of  labor.  It  will  be  a 
generalization  and  organization  of  insight  into  detail,  in  which 
at  last  the  details  will  get  a  credible  meaning  as  parts  of  a 
whole,  and  in  which  the  whole  will  not  be  an  abstraction,  but 
a  correlation  of  all  the  parts. 

As  we  observed  in  chap.  3,  the  impulse  of  sociology  has 
come  chiefly  from  instinct  or  perception  of  this  demand.  The 
sociologists  believe  that  the  most  worthy  work  of  men  is  effort 
to  improve  human  conditions.  They  believe  that  an  adequate 
theory  of  life  is  needed  in  order  that  endeavors  for  improve- 
ment may  be  intelligent.  They  consecrate  themselves  to  the 
work  of  constructing  a  general  science  of  society,  not  from 
desire  to  shirk  concrete  social  problems,  but  from  conviction 
that  they  will  contribute  most  to  the  solution  of  practical 
problems  in  the  end  if  they  hold  these  concrete  interests  as 
completely  as  possible  in  suspense,  and  work  as  long  as  neces- 
sary upon  general  theory  without  regard  to  its  immediate  use. 
Like  all  work  which  is  scientific  in  this  sense,  good  work  in 
sociology  will  seem  to  the  multitude  "a  vain  thing."     It  is 


CURRENT  CONFUSION  OF  MORAL  STANDARDS  655 

useless  to  plead  in  its  behalf  to  the  general  public,  or  even  to 
a  large  fraction  of  the  thinking  public.  Middlemen  must  work 
over  sociology,  as  fast  as  it  is  developed,  in  order  to  devote  it 
to  practical  things.  Meanwhile,  no  apology  is  due  for  the 
sociologists'  claim.  It  amounts  to  this :  We  need  a  genetic, 
static,  and  teleologic  account  of  associated  human  life;  a  state- 
ment which  will  explain  what  it  is,  how  it  is,  and  why  it  is; 
a  statement  which  can  be  relied  upon  as  the  basis  of  a  philoso- 
phy of  conduct.  In  order  to  derive  such  a  statement,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  complete  a  program  of  analyzing  and  synthe- 
sizing the  social  process  in  all  its  phases.  This  is  the  task 
which  the  sociologists  have  discovered,  and  their  work  is  pri- 
marily to  develop  a  method  of  performing  the  task.^ 

As  we  have  said,  the  original  impulse  of  modern  sociology 
was  intensely  practical.  Not  how  the  world  came  to  be  what 
it  is,  but  how  to  make  it  what  it  should  be,  was  the  problem 
that  it  confronted.  In  such  men  as  Saint-Simon  and  Owen 
and  the  English  mid-century  idealists  the  impulse  to  change 
the  world  was  more  in  evidence  than  the  sense  of  duty  to 
know  the  world.  Presently  reaction  from  sociological  senti- 
mentalism  diverted  attention  from  present  and  future  to  the 
past.  We  have  of  late  been  concentrating  our  interest  rather 
disproportionately  upon  social  beginnings  and  the  process  of 
social  development.  We  have  thus  become  shamefaced  about 
betraying  interest  in  the  forward  look.  The  facts  about  social 
evolution  are  not  worth  investigating,  however,  except  as 
guides  to  action.  Comparatively  little  progress  has  been  made 
as  yet  toward  final  formulation  of  social  activities,  but  they 
have  been  prospected  enough  to  warrant  some  of  the  sociolo- 
gists, at  least,  in  returning  to  their  first  love.  We  have  not 
established  premises  from  which  deductions  of  sociological 
precepts  may  be  drawn  directly.  We  have,  nevertheless,  found 
a  perspective  within  which  we  may  safely  begin  to  rearrange 
our  judgments  of  social  values. 

*  Yet  I  agree  fully  with  Professor  Henderson's  estimate  of  the  scientific 
rank  of  social  technology,  when  correlated,  as  he  indicates,  with  a  compre- 
hensive sociology.     Vide  Monographs  cited  below,  chap.  49. 


656  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

The  two  most  influential  protests  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury against  the  moral  sterilities  of  metaphysical  ethics  and  of 
orthodox  economics  were  those  of  Mill  and  Spencer.  They 
impeached  all  the  traditional  forms  of  absolute  ethics,  but  they 
made  a  sorry  mess  of  the  attempt  to  furnish  a  substitute. 
Spencer's  failure  is  the  more  notable,  because,  on  the  one  hand, 
his  ethical  criteria  "pleasure"  and  the  "law  of  equal  free- 
dom "  prove  to  be  merely  two  distinct  modes  of  assorting 
judgments  of  ethical  goods,  and  of  stating  the  equities  of  dis- 
tributing these  goods;  not  principles,  and  certainly  not  a  sin- 
gle principle,  for  the  discovery  of  the  goods.  On  the  other 
hand,  Spencer's  whole  philosophy  might  have  been  summed  up 
in  a  theorem  which  would  have  served  as  a  clue,  at  any  rate, 
to  a  constructive  principle  for  positive  ethics.  At  the  close 
of  his  First  Principles  Spencer  observes :  "  The  utmost  possi- 
bility for  us  is  an  interpretation  of  the  process  of  things  as 
it  presents  itself  to  our  limited  consciousness."^  We  might 
say  that  the  substance  of  Spencer's  philosophy  is  contained  in 
the  formula :  "  The  end  and  explanation  of  the  world-process 
is  the  process  itself."  That  is,  the  process  must  be  its  own 
interpreter.  The  whole  of  the  process  must  be  the  reason  for 
all  of  it  that  we  can  see,  and  all  of  it  that  we  can  see  must 
serve  as  tentative  explanation  of  each  part  of  the  process 
which  confronts  us  with  a  problem.  Instead  of  following 
this  working  clue  to  positive  ethics,  Spencer  chased  logical 
sunbeams. 

Our  genetic  and  structural  and  functional  sociology  has 
gone  far  enough  to  put  us  on  the  positive  scent  again.  We 
have  not  made  out  the  mysteries  of  the  social  process  very 
minutely,  but  we  have  become  conscious  that  there  is  a  process. 
We  have  made  some  approximate  analysis  of  its  content  and 
of  its  method.  We  are  able  to  form  rather  confident  judg- 
ments for  practical  purposes  about  conduct  within  this  process. 
The  next  step  for  our  intelligence  to  take  is  recognition  that 
these  practical  judgments  of  conduct  within  the  actual  life- 

^  First  Principles,  sec.   194. 


*  CURRENT  CONFUSION  OF  MORAL  STANDARDS         657 

process  are  the  raw  material  of  the  only  ethics  that  promises 
to  gain  general  assent.  These  judgments  enlarged,  criticised, 
and  systematized  are  the  best  that  we  can  know  about  what 
is  worth  doing.  They  are  the  real  appraisals  of  conduct,  which 
are  the  only  credible  indexes  of  the  concrete  content  fit  to 
fill  the  categories  of  formal  ethics. 

Society  is  ethically  bankrupt.  We  have  some  ethical 
assets,  but  they  are  a  small  percentage  of  our  liabilities. 
Speaking  generally,  our  ethical  capital  consists  of  a  hetero- 
geneous collection  of  provincial  moralities.  They  work 
together  with  that  degree  of  success  which  we  observe  in  the 
conduct  of  society.  By  means  of  them  society  keeps  in  motion, 
but  in  spite  of  enormous  waste  consumed  upon  the  frictions 
which  retard  the  motion.  We  have  no  universal  ethical  stand- 
ard to  which  one  class  may  appeal  against  another  class  and 
get  a  verdict  which  the  defeated  litigant  feels  bound  to  accept. 

For  instance,  all  of  us  have  the  concepts  "  right "  and 
"wrong."  The  majority  of  us  believe  that,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
and  until  society  sees  reasons  for  revising  it,  what  the  civil 
law  demands  is  right  and  what  it  forbids  is  wrong.  But  a 
minority  of  us  do  not  admit  even  that.  We  are  thus  divided 
at  the  outset  into  the  class  that  rejects  and  the  class  that 
accepts  the  general  obligations  of  the  law.  At  one  extreme 
of  the  former  class  is  the  species  known  as  the  law-breakers; 
yet  even  this  left  wing  of  the  less  social  division  of  society 
has  still  its  own  ethics,  its  peculiar  standards  of  right  and 
wrong.  It  is  right  to  conceal  a  fellow-criminal  from  the  offi- 
cers of  the  law.  It  is  wrong  to  "peach  on  one's  pal."  Within 
the  law-abiding  class  there  is  a  permanent  world's  exposition 
of  clashing  moral  standards.  They  fall  into  mechanical  adjust- 
ments with  each  other  in  obedience  to  social  influences  which 
we  need  not  schedule,  but  constantly  recurring  conflicts  of 
ethical  standard  display  abundant  evidence  that  assumption 
of  a  common  criterion  is  unwarranted. 

We  are  not  now  referring  to  immorality  itself,  however 
defined,  but  to  ethical  confusion.    Our  thesis  is  that  in  cases  of 


658  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

moral  conflict  individuals  of  not  very  dissimilar  types  will  be 
found  to  assume  quite  dissimilar  principles  for  settlement  of 
the  conflict.  If  we  pry  into  the  ethical  ideas  behind  our 
conduct,  we  find  confusion,  not  only  between  different  men, 
but  the  same  man  has  one  standard  for  his  business,  another 
for  his  politics,  another  for  his  amusements,  another  for  his 
religion.  The  proposition  is  not  that  men  are  conscious  and 
intentional  hypocrites,  but  that  if  we  should  put  Socratic 
questions  to  ourselves  we  should  find  that  our  purposes  in  life 
are  not  morally  concentric,  and  that  we  are  constantly  refer- 
ring certain  parts  of  our  conduct  to  one  kind  of  principle,  and 
other  parts  of  our  conduct  to  principles  which  do  not  belong 
in  the  same  system. 

We  all  know,  for  instance,  that  there  is  one  code  of  pro- 
fessional ethics  for  the  lawyer,  another  for  the  doctor,  another 
for  the  editor,  another  for  the  employer,  another  for  the 
employee,  another  for  the  teacher,  and  another  for  the  minis- 
ter. These  vocational  codes  do  not  necessarily  stand  upon 
different  ethical  planes,  but  they  consist  of  judgments  of  dif- 
ferent orders  of  utility,  and  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that  the 
persons  who  accept  and  apply  one  of  these  codes  are  able  to 
reach  corresponding  judgments  of  utility  in  activities  more 
remotely  related  to  their  peculiar  vocations.  All  of  us  see 
certain  bearings  of  action  within  our  peculiar  sphere,  while 
we  have  comparatively  little  insight  into  the  peculiar  situation 
of  the  other  spheres,  or  of  the  relativity  of  conduct  in  the  dif- 
ferent spheres.  We  need  not  claim  that  the  different  provin- 
cial moralities  are  not  reconcilable  with  each  other.  We  simply 
cite  the  fact  that  in  the  minds  of  most  of  us  they  are  not 
reconciled  with  each  other.  The  doctor  lives  within  the  dic- 
tates of  the  medical  code,  the  merchant  of  the  commercial  code, 
the  preacher  of  the  ministerial  code,  and  so  on.  Each  might 
be  conspicuously  helpless  if  obU^^^d  to  solve  the  moral  prob- 
lems that  occur  in  the  spheres  distant  from  his  own. 

The  preacher,  for  instance,  often  lays  the  flattering  unction 
to  his  soul  that  when  he  puts  his  finger  on  what  he  thinks 


CURRENT  CONFUSION  OF  MORAL  STANDARDS         659 

the  sore  spots  of  society,  and  prescribes  treatment  for  their 
cure,  the  opj^osition  which  he  provokes  is  caused  by  the  prick- 
ings of  guilty  conscience.  It  is  quite  as  Hkely  to  be  the  con- 
tempt of  insulted  intelligence.  He  does  not  understand  the 
situation  as  it  looks  to  the  people  most  concerned,  and  his 
ignorance  of  the  facts  makes  his  judgment  of  relations  worth- 
less. On  the  other  hand,  the  minister  who  ventures  into  the 
field  of  commercial  speculation  is  quite  apt  to  exhibit  phases 
of  moral  obtuseness  which  men  of  commercial  training  would 
denounce  as  beneath  the  standards  of  honesty  which  business 
requires.  Men  of  one  class  take  serious  risks  of  arousing 
hostility  to  ethics  in  general  when  they  attempt  to  carry  the 
moral  precepts  proper  to  their  own  sphere  over  into  the  sphere 
of  others.  The  reason  is^  in  brief,  that  each  of  us  works  under 
the  code  peculiar  to  his  calling  as  a  means  to  a  certain  end. 

For  instance,  the  legal  profession  tends  to  confine  its  func- 
tion to  "  practice  of  law  "  in  a  strict  sense,  with  slight  atten- 
tion to  reaction  upon  the  law  so  as  to  affect  it  from  the  stand- 
point of  society  at  large  outside  the  profession.  Few  of  us 
have  so  generalized  our  calling,  or  thought  out  the  relation 
of  its  end  to  all  the  ends  proper  to  all  the  members  of  society, 
that  we  can  adapt  the  principles  appropriate  to  the  calling  to 
the  activities  of  people  at  other  points  in  the  social  process. 
In  other  words,  society  is  divided  into  more  or  less  visible 
groups,  each  with  a  regulating  tradition  of  its  own.  These 
codes  together  imply  an  endless  variety  of  recognized  or 
unrecognized  ethical  assumptions,  between  which  there  are 
countless  degrees  of  non-correspondence,  often  reaching  utter 
contradiction. 

Suppose,  for  example,  w^e  are  in  the  midst  of  a  labor  con- 
flict. It  is  proposed  to  arbitrate  the  difficulty.  Representa- 
tives of  the  conflicting  parties  meet.  A  looker-on,  if  he  happen 
to  be  a  philosopher,  soon  discovers  that  the  issue  cannot  be 
decided  upon  ethical  grounds,  for  the  conflicting  parties,  and 
perhaps  the  arbitrating  board,  have  each  a  different  standard 
of  ethics.     The  employers'  ethics  are  founded  upon  concep- 


66o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

tions  of  the  rights  of  property.  The  employees'  ethics  take 
as  their  standard  certain  conceptions  of  the  rights  of  labor. 
The  arbitrators'  ethics  may  vary  from  the  lawyer's  interpreta- 
tion of  the  civil  code  to  the  speculative  philosopher's  concep- 
tion of  the  ideal  rights  of  the  generic  man.  There  is  no  com- 
mon ethical  appeal.  Neither  litigants  nor  referees  can  con- 
vince the  others  that  they  must  recognize  a  paramount  stand- 
ard of  right.  The  decision  has  to  be  reached  either  by  resort 
to  force  or  by  a  compromise  of  claims,  each  of  which  con- 
tinues to  assert  its  full  title  in  spite  of  the  pressure  of  circum- 
stances. To  be  sure,  our  habits  are  molded  by  a  complex 
social  restraint  which  limits  the  scope  of  our  moral  choice,  but 
when  we  encounter  conflicting  claims  of  right  and  wrong  we 
find  ourselves  betraying  belief  in  fundamental  ethical  postu- 
lates which  we  are  unable  to  reconcile. 

Outside  the  beaten  track  of  necessary  conformity  to  social 
requirement,  our  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  are  variations  of 
conceptions  which  we  are  powerless  to  harmonize.  Some  of 
us  think  that  the  last  measure  of  right  is  what  physical  law 
permits ;  some  of  us  think  it  is  what  statute  law  permits ;  some 
again  think  it  is  what  divine  law  demands,  and  still  others 
what  individual  preference  suggests.  More  than  this,  there 
is  infinite  variety  in  the  rendering  which  the  believers  in  physi- 
cal law,  statute  law,  divine  law,  and  individual  choice  give  to 
the  standards  they  assume.  To  many  people  so-called  ethical 
standards  are  only  the  private  opinions  of  persons  who  take 
their  own  moral  judgments  seriously.  To  others  there  seem 
to  be  ethical  standards  with  neither  variableness  nor  shadow 
of  turning.  To  still  others  ethical  standards  constitute  a 
sliding  scale  toward  which  individuals  have  mysteriously 
adjustable  relations.  The  absence  of  a  central  tribunal  of 
moral  judgment  is  the  most  radical  fact  in  our  present  social 
situation. 

It  will  appear  presently  that  this  state  of  things  reflects 
the  fragmentary  and  incoherent  sociolog\''  in  our  minds. 
That  is,  moral  judgments  are  necessarily  judgments  as  to 


CURRENT  CONFUSION  OF  MORAL  STANDARDS  66l 

the  effects  produced  by  actions  operating  as  causes.  In  order 
to  know  how  social  actions  operate  as  causes  and  produce 
effects,  it  is  necessary  to  have  description  and  explanation  of 
the  social  process,  and  of  the  structures  and  functions 
involved ;  for  it  is  with  reference  to  these  that  our  moral  judg- 
ments assume  knowledge  of  cause  and  effect.  We  are  guess- 
ing at  the  premises  of  our  moral  judgments  unless  we  know 
how  causes  act  in  the  situation  in  which  they  operate.  Each 
conflicting  idea  of  moral  standards  implies  a  philosophy  of 
life  more  or  less  developed,  a  sociology  more  or  less  complete. 
There  can  be  no  agreement  about  these  moral  standards  until 
there  is  agreement  about  the  presupposed  view  of  life  that 
gives  the  morality  its  sanction. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

THE    UNKNOWN    QUANTITY    IN    MORAL    PROBLEMS 

Human  life  is  a  plexus  of  relationships  which  we  may 
formulate  technically  as  the  interplay  of  psycho-physical 
mechanisms  that  are  installed  in  the  individuals.  Those 
phases  of  human  activity  to  which  the  concept  "  ethical "  is 
applicable  have  to  be  analyzed  at  last  in  terms  of  this  psycho- 
physical mechanism,  and  of  the  conditions  in  which  it  oper- 
ates. Indeed,  for  our  purposes  we  may  define  psychology 
and  sociology  by  the  same  formula,  merely  shifting  the  empha- 
sis to  indicate  the  peculiar  problem  of  each.  Psychology  is 
the  science  of  the  mechanism  of  the  social  process.  Sociology 
is  the  science  of  the  mechanism  of  the  social  process}  Using 
the  term  "psychology"  for  both  process  and  results  of  analyz- 
ing the  social  mechanism,  we  may  claim  to  have  learned  to 
distinguish  very  sharply  between  that  knowledge  of  sentient 
activity  which  traces  the  causal  series  from  condition  and 
stimulus  to  that  discharge  of  motor  energy  which  we  call  the 
act;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  quite  different  order  of 
knowledge  which  consists  in  the  valuation  of  the  act  itself. 
Thus  we  may  have  the  psychology  of  the  taboo,  of  the  suttee, 
of  play,  of  war,  of  social  distinctions,  of  institutional  charity, 
of  partisanship,  of  patriotism,  of  religion.  Analysis  of  the 
activities  so  classified  may  be,  and  in  proportion  as  it  is  per- 
fectly abstracted  it  is,  as  independent  of  ethical  valuation  of 
them  as  psychological  and  pathological  examinations  of  the 
effects  of  a  blow,  a  stab,  or  a  gun-shot  wound  are  of  judg- 
ments about  the  morality  of  homicide.  Sociology  is  concerned 
characteristically  less  with  the  mechanism  of  the  process,  and 
more  with  the  process  and  the  worth  of  the  process.  Science 
is  sterile  unless  it  contributes  at  last  to  knowledge  of  what  is 
worth  doing.     Ethical  science  is  fruitful  in  the  exact  degree 

'  yide  p.  431. 

662 


THE  UNKNOWN  QUANTITY  IN  MORAL  PROBLEMS      (6z 

in  which  it  promotes  this  knowledge.  Sociology  would  have 
no  sufficient  reason  for  existence  if  it  did  not  contribute  at 
last  to  knowledge  of  what  is  worth  doing.  As  it  is  hardly 
worth  while  to  challenge  the  traditional  concession  of  the 
whole  field  of  conduct-valuation  to  ethics,  we  may  frankly 
rank  sociology  as  tributary  to  ethics.  The  ultimate  value  of 
sociology  as  pure  science  will  be  its  use  as  an  index  and  a 
test  and  a  measure  of  what  is  worth  doing. 

The  general  thesis  of  this  part  of  the  argument  may  be 
restated  therefore  in  this  way :  Ethics  must  consist  of  empty 
forms  until  sociology  can  indicate  the  substance  to  which  the 
forms  apply.  Every  ethical  judgment  with  an  actual  content 
has  at  least  tacitly  presupposed  a  sociology.  Every  individual 
or  social  estimate  of  good  and  bad,  of  right  and  wrong,  cur- 
rent today  assumes  a  sociology.  No  code  of  morals  can  be 
adopted  in  the  future  without  implying  a  sociology  as  part 
of  its  premises.  To  those  who  are  acquainted  with  both  the 
history  of  ethics  and  the  scope  of  sociology  these  propositions 
are  almost  self-evident.  They  may  be  left,  therefore,  at  this 
point,  without  the  support  of  argument  or  illustration.  We 
return  to  them  later  for  further  elaboration. 

The  details  of  human  life  cannot  be  divided  up  among 
sciences,  as  a  hoard  of  coins  might  be  distributed  among 
inheritors.  The  problems  which  life  presents  call  rather  for 
intellectual  effort  in  the  course  of  which  the  different  methods 
of  procedure  appropriate  to  different  divisions  of  science  are  in 
turn  undermost  and  uppermost  and  foremost.  The  ultimate 
problem  on  the  side  of  pure  science  is :  What  is  worth  doing? 
The  ultimate  practical  problem  is :  Hozv  may  the  thing  worth 
doing  he  done?  The  former  is  the  most  general  form  of  the 
constructive  problem  of  ethics ;  the  latter  is  the  most  general 
form  of  the  technical  problem  of  life.  General  sociology,  as 
the  science  of  moral  content  rather  than  of  ethical  forms, 
finds  its  strategic  base  midway  between  psychology,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  social  technology,  on  the  other.  Its  first  busi- 
ness is  to  make  out  the  connections  between   the   different 


664  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

details  of  activity  which  make  up  the  hfe-process  as  a  whole, 
so  that  these  connections  will  indicate  a  positive  content  for 
the  ethical  categories.  More  concretely  expressed,  the  fruit- 
fulness  of  sociological  procedure  begins  to  be  visible  after  we 
have  observed  the  phenomena  of  the  taboo,  of  the  suttee,  of 
play,  of  war,  of  social  distinctions,  of  institutional  charity, 
of  partisanship,  of  patriotism,  of  religion,  and  of  the  countless 
other  social  relationships  of  which  these  may  serve  as  samples. 
The  problem  of  sociology  properly  begins  after  we  have 
accounted  for  these  phenomena,  in  terms  of  psycho-physical 
causation.  It  begins  after  we  have  taken  account,  it  may  be, 
of  the  judgments  that  the  persons  taking  part  in  them  enter- 
tained of  the  value  of  these  activities.  The  sociological  prob- 
lem is  primarily  to  visualize  all  human  activities  in  a  per- 
spective corresponding  with  reality;  it  is,  second,  to  discover 
whether  there  is  any  principle  of  correlation  between  these 
activities,  by  means  of  which  it  may  be  possible  to  decide, 
from  the  standpoint  of  humanity  in  general,  that  any  selected 
act  in  the  series,  or  any  class  of  acts,  was  or  was  not  worth 
doing;  that  is,  in  harmony  or  disharmony  with  the  principle 
of  correlation.  The  problem  of  sociology  is,  third,  to  gener- 
alize those  means  of  valuing  past  conduct  into  means  of 
deciding  whether  this  or  that  in  the  present  is  worth  doing; 
or,  more  specifically:  What  is  the  activity  indicated  by  a 
social  situation,  both  to  the  society  itself  and  to  the  persons 
who  compose  the  society? 

While  the  psychological  problem,  therefore,  is  the  state- 
ment of  the  mechanism  of  conduct;  and  while  the  ethical 
problem  is  the  classification  of  conduct  in  formal  categories 
based  upon  some  criterion  of  worth,  in  the  act,  or  actor,  or 
consequences  of  the  action,  or  transcendental  relationships  of 
action;  the  sociological  problem  is  objective  analysis  and 
reconstruction  of  human  activities  in  their  actual  connections 
as  mutually  related  facts,  and  discovery  of  the  marks  by  which 
wc  may  assign  each  of  these  activities  to  its  proper  ethical 
category.     Accordingly,  disregarding  traditional  academic  dis- 


THE  UNKNOWN  QUANTITY  IN  MORAL  PROBLEMS      665 

tinctions,  we  may  say  that  the  sociological  problem  is,  first, 
the  psychological  problem  as  it  is  presented,  not  by  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  psycho-physical  process  in  the  individual,  but 
as  it  is  encountered  in  the  process  of  the  same  mechanism 
when  individuals  are  in  contact  with  each  other.  The  socio- 
logical problem  is,  second,  the  positive  or  concrete  side  of  the 
ethical  problem,  namely,  the  determination  of  actual  values  as 
distinguished  from  the  logic  of  the  categories  of  valuation. 
Or,  once  more,  the  sociological  problem  is  to  express  objec- 
tively situations  between  persons,  and  the  interchange  of  influ- 
ence between  person  and  person  in  the  situations,  and  then  to 
determine  the  positive  or  negative  effects  of  those  reactions 
upon  some  relationship  of  the  situation  taken  as  a  norm.  In 
this  way  we  divide  the  sociological  from  the  psychological 
problem,  which  is  to  express  what  occurs  within  the  individuals 
as  such,  and  from  the  ethical  problem,  which  is  to  indicate 
the  place  of  these  activities  abstractly  considered  in  a  system 
of  logically  related  facts. 


CHAPTER  XLIII 
THE  LOGICAL  FORM  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS 

While  we  have  in  the  last  chapter  partially  stated  the  dis- 
tinctions to  which  our  present  title  refers,  a  further  delimita- 
tion remains.  Two  distinct  problems  seem  everywhere  hope- 
lessly entangled  when  people  discuss  moral  theory.  The  first 
is:  What  process  is  involved  in  arriving  at  the  judgments 
"  good  "  and  "  bad  "  ?  The  second  is :  What  is  the  final  cri- 
terion of  the  validity  of  our  judgments  of  "good"  and 
"bad"?  Whenever  the  former  problem  has  forced  itself  to 
the  front,  what  purported  to  be  ethical  theory  has  consisted 
largely  of  mental  philosophy,  or  more  recently  of  psychology. 
When  the  latter  problem  has  claimed  chief  attention,  the 
hypotheses  proposed  for  solution  of  it  ranged  from  ethical 
metaphysics  to  frank  empirics.  Properly  considered,  each  of 
these  two  problems  helps  to  solve  the  other,  but,  confused, 
each  helps  to  make  the  solution  of  the  other  impossible.  The 
question  nearest  to  the  actual  conduct  of  life  is:  How  may 
I  know  that  a  judgment  of  good  or  bad  is  worth  following? 
It  may  turn  out  that  this  question  cannot  be  answered  until  we 
have  an  answer  to  the  previous  question,  how  a  judgment  of 
good  or  bad  is  reached.  None  the  less,  the  plain  man,  not 
a  specialist  in  psychology,  does  not  care  how  the  judgment  is 
reached  psychologically,  provided  he  is  sure  of  the  logical 
soundness  of  the  judgment  itself. 

Now  psychology  cannot  of  itself  classify  valuations  as 
valid  or  invalid.  By  one  and  the  same  psychological  process 
we  arrive  at  contradictory  judgments  of  value.  The  process 
by  which  one  group  of  persons  comes  to  regard  polygamy  as 
good  is  precisely  the  same  psychologically  as  that  by  which 
another  group  pronounces  it  bad.  We  judge  vivisection,  vac- 
cination,  faith-healing  to  be  good  or  bad  according  to  our 

666 


THE  LOGICAL  FORM  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  667 

point  of  view,  but  the  process  by  which  we  array  ourselves  in 
contradictory  judgments  is  in  each  case  psychologically  one 
and  the  same.  It  does  not  follow  that  the  analysis  of  the 
process  has  no  value  for  ethics.  It  does  follow  that  we  must 
not  permit  ourselves  to  mistake  the  results  of  this  psychologi- 
cal analysis  for  a  solution  of  the  ethical  problem.  It  will 
assist  us  to  make  this  distinction  clear  if  we  review  somewhat 
in  detail  the  process  of  reaching  valuations  of  conduct.  This 
is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  further  criticism  of  the  criteria 
of  conduct. 

As  we  observed  above,  there  is  utter  confusion  about  the 
sociology  of  ethics.  Nevertheless  there  is  in  one  respect 
remarkable  uniformity  in  the  psychology  of  our  moral  judg- 
ments. This  uniformity  is  not  a  matter  of  reason  or  of  choice, 
but  it  is  evident  in  connection  with  all  choices,  reasonable  and 
unreasonable  alike.  However  diverse  the  subject-matter  of 
our  judgments,  we  invariably  pronounce  anything  good  or 
right  which  is  good  for  something,  and  other  things  bad  or 
wrong  which  are  not  good  for  the  same  thing.  In  the  spring 
of  1893  the  weather  in  Chicago  was  unusually  severe.  The 
little  people  who  were  to  represent  Javanese  civilization  on 
the  Midway  arrived  a  month  before  the  Fair  was  opened. 
They  used  to  frequent  the  streets  in  the  vicinity  of  Jackson 
Park,  and  the  residents  learned  to  pity  the  little  people  who 
came  clothed  in  a  way  that  was  no  protection  against  the 
fickle  climate.  Toward  the  end  of  August  a  clump  of  visitors 
were  gathered  around  one  of  the  huts  in  the  Javanese  village. 
One  of  them  tried  to  draw  the  man  of  the  establishment  into 
conversation.  He  inquired  :  "  How  do  you  like  Chicago  ?  " 
The  little  fellow  thought  a  moment,  then,  summoning  all  the 
resources  of  his  vocabulary,  together  with  more  expressive 
pantomime,  replied:  "Chicago  warm,  good!  Chicago  cold, 
no  good ! "  There  was  the  rudimentary  moral  judgment. 
This  man's  personal  comfort  being  the  standard,  things  are 
good  and  bad  according  to  their  physical  reaction  on  himself. 
Psychologically  this  is  the  whole  of  every  determination  of 
right  and  wrong,  good  and  bad. 


668  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

In  other  words,  we  cannot  pronounce  an  estimate  of  value 
without  implicitly  setting  up  a  conception  of  some  desirable 
end.  We  then  say  the  things  are  good  that  make  for  this  end. 
To  Czolgosz  anarchy  is  an  end  to  be  desired.  The  murder  of 
the  President  seems  to  his  deluded  mind  likely  to  promote 
anarchy.  Because  it  is  supposed  to  be  the  means  to  an  end 
assumed  to  be  good,  the  assassination  of  the  President  is  good 
also.  Or  again,  a  generation  ago  millions  of  men  north  and 
south  believed  that  a  certain  constitutional  order  was  good. 
The  men  of  the  South  believed  in  state  sovereignty.  The  men 
of  the  North  believed  in  a  federal  union  paramount  to  the 
states.  Each  section  held  its  conception  of  government  so 
dear  that,  to  realize  it,  the  sacrifice  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  lives  was  deemed  good.  The  logic  is  quite  different,  but 
the  psychology  of  the  three  cases  is  fundamentally  one  and 
the  same.  Each  held  in  view  an  end  assumed  to  be  desirable. 
Each  found  a  means  believed  to  be  tributary  to  that  end. 
Each  rendered  the  same  form  of  judgment,  namely :  This 
means,  being  tributary  to  that  end,  is  good.  What  is  true  of 
these  instances  illustrates  what  is  universally  true  about  moral 
judgments.  They  are  invariably  appraisals  of  things  as  good 
or  bad  because  they  are  believed  to  make,  or  not  to  make,  for 
things  supposed  to  be  good. 

Of  course,  we  do  not  often  go  through  the  conscious 
process  of  carrying  out  these  steps,  when  we  say,  for  instance, 
a  blanket,  a  drink  of  water,  a  football  victory,  or  an  inter- 
national treaty  is  good.  If,  however,  we  analyze  the  process 
that  clown  and  sage  alike  perform,  it  involves  these  psycho- 
logical factors.  It  is  a  gauging  of  the  value  of  things  in  ques- 
tion by  their  relation  to  other  things  whose  value  is  not  in 
question.  If  it  were  permissible  to  use  an  old  term  in  a  new 
sense,  we  might  give  to  a  familiar  word  a  content  more  in 
accordance  with  its  etymological  implications  l)y  saying  that 
all  ethical  judgments  are  iitilitarian  in  form ;  that  is,  they  are 
judgments  of  uses.  To  avoid  misconception,  we  may  say  that 
all  moral  judgments  are  telic  in  form;   that  is,  they  are  esti- 


THE  LOGICAL  FORM  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  669 

mates  of  the  relations  of  actions  to  ends.  The  last  recourse 
in  practice,  for  testing  the  finality  of  moral  judgments,  has 
to  be  an  appeal  to  the  relative  value  of  the  ends  which  in  turn 
are  held  to  sanction  or  condemn  conduct.  This  is  not  utili- 
tarianism in  the  historic  sense.  It  is  the  larger  generalization 
toward  which  utilitarianism  was  a  contribution.^  In  other 
words,  all  particular  moral  judgments  are  implied  estimates 
of  the  usefulness  of  the  actions  concerned  with  reference  to 
ends  contemplated  as  desirable.  This  is  a  psychological  fact 
which  is  not  affected  by  any  theory  that  we  may  hold  about  the 
ultimate  sanction  of  moral  distinctions. 

As  already  hinted,  the  common  fault  of  traditional  ethics 
of  every  school  has  been  illusion  about  the  standard  actually 
employed.  The  systems  which  are  in  form  most  absolute 
prove  upon  inspection  to  be  in  application  alike  relative.  The 
fallacy  of  every  scheme  of  categorical  ethics  is  that,  in  dia- 
lectic form^  a  fixed  criterion  is  adopted.  It  seems  to  be  an 
invariable  standard  by  which  details  of  conduct  may  be  meas- 
ured. Practically,  the  criterion  when  in  use  is  a  variable.  It 
is  made  up  of  quantities  or  qualities  derived  from  the  things 
to  be  measured.  Thus  the  actual  standard  is  not  absolute, 
but  relative  after  all.^  For  example,  if  the  "will  of  God"  be 
taken  as  the  absolute  standard  of  conduct,  each  judgment 
about  a  specific  act  will  be  referred  to  some  assumed  expres- 
sion of  the  will  of  God.  Accordingly,  we  have  in  practice, 
instead  of  an  invariable  norm  of  conduct  corresponding  to  the 
alleged  norm,  the  divine  will,  innumerable  accommodations 
or  versions  of  the  norm.  Thus  the  divine  will  according  to 
Moses,  the  divine  will  according  to  Mahomet,  the  divine  will 
according  to  Paul,  the  divine  will  according  to  Rome,  or 
Constantinople,  or  Geneva,  or  Westminster,  or  Massachusetts 
Bay.     Again,   if  our  philosophy  posits  "well-being"   as  the 

*  For  the  reason  here  hinted  at,  we  have  proposed  the  term  telicism  as  a 
title  for  the  ethical  system  which  sociology  tends  to  derive.     See  p.  684,  below. 

"  Our  dissent  from  Spencer's  ethical  philosophy  as  a  whole  does  not 
obscure  the  fact  that  he  has  conclusively  shown  the  above  to  be  true,  especially 
in  chap.  15  of  The  Data  of  Ethics. 


670  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

criterion  of  conduct,  we  no  sooner  attempt  to  apply  the  cri- 
terion than  we  accept  some  particular  phase  or  features  of 
human  condition  as  the  concrete  equivalent  of  our  formal  abso- 
lute; thus,  as  before,  employing  after  all  an  accommodating 
relative  standard  instead  of  an  inflexible  absolute  standard. 

This  fault  has  not  been  confined  to  speculative  schools  of 
ethics,  Positivists,  like  Herbert  Spencer,  have  not  only  com- 
mitted the  traditional  fault,  but  their  lapse  has  been  the  more 
notable  because  they  have  so  distinctly  defined  the  fault.  They 
have  first  denounced  absolute  standards  of  conduct.  They 
have  then  proposed  a  "  rational "  positive  test.  But  presently, 
just  like  men  of  other  schools,  they  have  made  this  test  an 
absolute  criterion  of  conduct,  and  then  in  practice  they  have 
applied  the  criterion  by  shifting  adjustments  to  concrete  con- 
ditions.^ 

We  must  borrow  further  psychological  commonplaces  in 
order  to  establish  a  point  of  departure  for  our  sociological 
argument. 

A.  The  judgment  of  good  and  had  is  involuntary.  The 
standard  of  good  and  had  is  derived. 

This  is  the  extent  of  the  basis  in  fact  for  the  intuitional 
philosophy.  The  act  of  judging  a  thing  or  an  act  good  or 
bad  is  beyond  our  control.  So  far  as  we  know,  the  genus  homo 
sapiens  has  always  performed  this  process  spontaneously,  if 
the  necessary  stimuli  were  present.  Neither  the  process  of 
judging  nor  the  result  of  the  judgment  is  directly  dependent 
upon  the  will.  In  this  sense  only  is  moral  judgment  "  intui- 
tive." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  standard  with  which  the  thing  or 
act  pronounced  good  or  bad  is  implicitly  compared,  in  order  to 
perform  the  judgment,  is  the  product  of  experience.  Jonathan 
Edwards  taught  a  most  terrific  doctrine  of  good  and  evil. 
His  formal  morality  was  many  degrees  severer  than  that  of 
most  men  in  the  line  of  intellectual  succession  from  him  today. 
Yet  his  working  standard  permitted  him  to  conduct  himself 

'  Thus  "  pleasure  "  throughout  Spencer's  Principles  of  Ethics. 


THE  LOGICAL  FORM  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  671 

with  reference  to  intoxicating  liquors  in  a  way  which  the  work- 
ing standards  of  his  successors  today  forbid.  The  Continental 
Congress  of  the  American  Colonies  voted  to  raise  money  for 
defraying  the  expenses  of  the  war  with  Great  Britain  by  a 
lottery.  A  century  later  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
pronounces  lotteries  immoral,  and  applies  the  machinery  of 
government  to  their  suppression.  The  judgment  of  good  and 
bad  is  probably  no  more  immediate  and  no  more  inexorable 
in  the  later  than  in  the  earlier  cases.  The  standard  in  accord- 
ance with  which  the  later  judgment  is  passed  is  the  resultant 
of  general  moral  ideas  varied  by  experiences  which  have  inter- 
vened between  the  earlier  and  the  later  dates. 

The  sense  of  obligation  which  accompanies  acts  of  moral 
valuation,  and  which  we  perhaps  think  of  as  the  distinctive  or 
characteristic  contribution  of  conscience  to  moral  processes, 
may  or  may  not  have  been  aboriginal.  Whether  the  feeling 
of  obligation  is  intuitive  or  derived  is  one  question.  Whether 
its  psychological  basis  is  different  from  that  of  an  economic 
judgment  of  good  and  bad,  for  example,  in  connection  with 
which  no  such  feeling  arises,  is  quite  another  question.  The 
former  of  these  problems  does  not  enter  into  our  present  dis- 
cussion. It  is  enough  for  the  purposes  of  this  argument  to 
distinguish  the  three  facts :  Hrst,  each  person  has  a  more  or 
less  vague  standard  of  what  is  on  the  whole  to  be  desired  or 
deplored;  second,  classification  of  objects  or  acts  as  good  or 
bad  according  as  they  are  desirable  or  deplorable  occurs  spon- 
taneously zvhenever  particulars  become  objects  of  attention; 
third,  the  standard  of  the  desirable  or  deplorable,  that  is,  of 
the  good  or  the  bad,  varies  zvith  race,  historical  epoch,  and- 
individual  conditions. 

B.  The  highest  thinkable  good  is  a  variable  condition. 
This  proposition  is  not  a  repetition  of  the  third  clause  in  the 
last  formula.  It  does  not  mean  simply  "  subjective  con- 
ceptions of  the  highest  good  vary."  It  means  that,  if  we 
represent  to  ourselves  any  good  whatever  as  a  complete  and 
closed  finality,  we  do  so  by  suspending  the  thought-process.. 


672  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Every  good  that  we  can  think  is  a  relation  of  sentient  persons 
in  adjustment  with  situations.  The  conception  of  terminated 
activity  may  conceivably  be  inviting  to  some  intelligences 
beyond  our  knowledge,  but  it  is  repugnant  to  us.  Continued 
activity  involves  continuance  of  adaptation.  Our  conception 
of  good  may  advance  to  specifications  of  condition  to  which 
we  can  add  no  concrete  particulars;  but,  with  our  utmost 
thought  of  ourselves,  we  conceive  of  ourselves  as  conscious, 
as  active,  as  having  feelings,  as  reacting  upon  our  conditions, 
as  thereby  changing  the  conditions,  and  consequently  as 
requiring  new  adjustments  to  the  altered  conditions.  In  other 
words,  our  definitions  of  good  may  not  go  beyond  the  statical 
form,  but  the  implications  of  all  our  conceptions  of  good  are 
virtually  dynamic."* 

Suppose  we  analyze  the  situation  in  which  a  thing  once 
pronounced  good  has  its  place;  suppose  we  reach  the  con- 
clusion that  the  thing  no  longer  procures  the  adjustment  which 
the  needs  of  the  situation  require;  our  judgment  of  the  good- 
ness of  that  thing  is  immediately  suspended.  We  do  not  at 
once  reverse  the  judgment  in  terms,  because,  as  we  are  point- 
ing out,  our  standards  of  judgment  are  less  automatic  than  the 
act  of  judgment.  Our  feelings  reverse  the  judgment  of  good, 
but  our  intelligence  may  not  reaffirm  the  verdict  of  the  feel- 
ings. Under  other  circumstances  the  judgment  may  lead  in 
revolt,  while  the  feelings  remain  constant  to  the  traditional 
standard.  In  either  case,  however,  we  have  virtually  aban- 
doned our  former  valuation,  so  soon  as  conflict  appears 
between  the  detail  in  question  and  the  conditions  of  the  situa- 
tion. The  good  is  at  last  the  good  of  adjustment.  It  is  the 
good  of  activity  which  can  take  its  place  with  the  other  activi- 
ties that  together  constitute  the  situation  upon  which  moral 
value  depends.  That  is,  as  life  is  process,  the  good  for  the 
individual  is  motion  in  conformity  with  the  stage  of  the 
process  in  which  he  belongs.     As  we  shall  argue  presently,  the 

*  The  history  of  the  ideas  "  nirvana  "  and  "  heaven  "  at  first  sight  contra- 
dicts, but  actually  confirms,  these  propositions. 


THE  LOGICAL  FORM  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  673 

good  for  society  in  any  stage  is  the  good  fit  to  assure  advance 
toward  the  next  stage. 

C.  The  only  intelligible  measure  of  good  is  human  con- 
dition. That  is  always  held  by  men  to  be  good  for  men  which 
promises  to  procure  the  most  desirable  results  for  men.  It 
is  unnecessary  to  show  in  detail  that  the  content  of  this  unit 
of  measure  is  indefinitely  variable.  All  that  is  necessary  for 
our  present  argument  is  to  recur  to  this  fact,  that  the  standard 
of  valuation  which  we  are  psychologically  compelled  to  employ 
is  one  in  which  the  objects  judged  are  related  to  the  conditions 
of  the  persons  judging.  They  can  have  no  meaning  for  us 
unless  they  present  some  aspect  to  us  which  evokes  favorable 
or  unfavorable  feeling.  It  may  be  sense  of  physical  desire 
or  dislike,  or  the  loftiest  moral  approbation;  but  it  is  always 
a  verdict  based  upon  some  grounds  upon  which  human  feelings 
can  find  footing. 

D.  The  existing  body  of  perceptions  about  human  facts 
and  possibilities  must  fix  the  limits  of  our  working  judgments 
of  the  highest  good.  If  men  agree  with  Schopenhauer  that 
existence  is  an  evil,  they  will  tend  to  agree  with  him  that 
diminution  of  evil  will  be  achieved  only  when  the  death-rate 
permanently  exceeds  the  birth-rate.  If  men  agree  that  maxi- 
mum productivity  of  material  goods  is  the  final  criterion  of 
civilization,  they  will  accordingly  incline  to  rate  mind,  con- 
science, aesthetic  sensibility,  family,  school,  Church,  State, 
solely  as  related  to  economic  ends ;  and  they  will  obstruct  any 
consideration  of  material  products  as  means  to  intellectual, 
social,  aesthetic,  and  moral  ends.  Present  conceptions  of  the 
rational  aims  of  life,  and  of  the  adaptability  of  possible  means 
to  attainable  ends,  must  necessarily  constitute  the  w'orking 
standard  of  individual  and  social  good.  Accordingly,  we  must 
learn  the  virtue  which  is  in  the  psychological  necessity  of 
employing  relative  standards  of  ethical  value.  We  must  learn 
to  determine  that  relative  standard  which  involves  the  nearest 
approach  to  absoluteness  which  our  intelligence  can  achieve. 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

THE  RELATION  OF  THE  PROCESS-CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE  TO 
MORAL  JUDGMENTS 

The  whole  argument  converges  at  this  point  upon  two 
propositions : 

1.  Every  ethical  system  with  a  concrete  content  virtuully 
presupposes  a  sociology. 

2.  There  can  he  no  generally  recognised  ethical  standards 
until  there  is  a  generally  accepted  sociology. 

We  have  seen  that  the  mind  refuses  to  stop  with  knowl- 
edge of  what  is.  There  is  constant  valuation  of  what  is.  The 
inevitable  corollary  of  the  valuation  is  further  judgment  of 
what  may  be  or  ought  to  be.  As  each  judgment  of  this  sort 
implies  a  sociology  after  its  kind,  so  each  sociology  involves 
a  methodology  of  ethical  valuation.  We  have  now  to  point 
out  the  form  in  which  a  sociology  developed  from  the  process- 
conception  of  life  must  distinguish  between  the  good  and  the 
bad,  the  right  and  the  wrong. 

Whether  we  are  aware  of  it  or  not,  whether  we  approve  of 
it  or  not,  the  human  race  is  visibly  gravitating  toward  appli- 
cation of  the  criterion  which  the  process-conception  of  life 
indicates.  That  which  positive  sociology  arrives  at  as  the 
result  of  analysis  at  the  same  time  comes  progressively  to  be 
the  unconscious  assumption  of  everyday  men.  Though  the 
process-conception  be  pronounced  a  snare,  and  the  tendency 
of  popular  judgment  a  delusion,  both  are  realities,  and  they 
must  have  their  reckoning. 

It  should  be  said  at  once  that,  so  far  as  the  essential  virtues 
are  concerned,  the  process-conception  of  life  has  no  revelation 
that  would  tend  to  revise  the  list.  It  rescues  them,  however, 
from  the  limbo  of  purely  static  classifications,  and  exhibits 
them  in  their  working  relations  as  necessities  of  social  adjust- 
ment.    The  process-conception  reaffirms  the  Ten  Command- 

674 


PROCESS-CONCEPTION  AND  MORAL  JUDGMENTS       675 

ments,  not  as  statutes,  but  as  principles  of  social  economy, 
given  in  the  necessities  of  the  human  situation.  The  process- 
conception  gives  no  license  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  moral 
principles.  On  the  other  hand,  it  challenges  the  authority  of 
every  dogmatic  assertion  of  a  moral  principle,  unless  it  can 
be  justified  by  ascertained  moral  economies. 

In  no  period  has  it  been  as  evident  as  it  is  today  that  valua- 
tions of  good  and  bad,  of  right  and  wrong,  came  into  exist- 
ence by  growth,  and  that  they  are  now,  in  our  own  minds  and 
before  our  own  eyes,  in  full  course  of  growth.  Not  only  are 
we  calling  some  things  ''good"  or  "bad"  to  which  people 
once  applied  the  opposite  label,  but  within  one  lifetime  com- 
plete reversals  occur  in  the  formulas  by  which  tests  of  good 
and  bad  are  applied.  Men  hardly  past  middle  life  remember 
when  persons  who  had  declared  slavery  to  be  an  ordinance  of 
God,  changed  their  minds,  and  declared  that  abolition  of 
slavery  was  an  ordinance  of  God.  In  less  important  matters 
similar  changes  are  familiar.  Within  a  half-century,  men  of 
the  same  general  moral  and  religious  type  have,  in  certain 
instances,  passed  through  two  distinct  reversals  of  judgment 
about  the  use  of  alcoholic  drinks.  They  were  first  good,  then 
bad,  and  in  many  cases  the  same  types  of  men  are  now  rating 
them  as  good  again,  with  certain  qualifications. 

For  better  or  for  worse,  temporarily  or  permanently,  many 
similar  instances  have  occurred,  and  they  are  increasing  in 
number.  The  ethics  of  the  family,  of  political  and  financial 
trusteeship,  of  international  relations,  are  in  course  of  con- 
scious or  unconscious  re-examination.  The  ethical  norms  for 
each  of  these  relations  are  in  a  process  of  transition. 

As  a  single  illustration  of  change  in  the  philosophical  pos- 
tulates underlying  ethical  judgments,  we  may  cite  the  shift- 
ing of  standpoint  in  a  generation  among  certain  theological 
thinkers.  They  used  to  say :  "  This  or  that  is  right  because 
it  is  commanded  in  the  Bible."  They  now  say:  "This  or 
that  is  commanded  in  the  Bible  because  it  is  right." 

Another  important  factor,  already  alluded  to  (chap.  41), 


(n(i  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

in  our  present  situation  is  that  our  period  is  peculiar  in  its 
witness  to  the  need  of  a  common  criterion  of  moral  values. 
In  no  period  have  more  concrete  questions  waited  for  the 
application  of  a  conclusive  moral  standard.  The  struggle  in 
society  has  never  been  more  miscellaneous.  Each  of  us  is 
demanding  of  every  other  that  he  shall  do  some  "  right "  in 
place  of  some  "wrong;"  and  each  of  us  is  replying  to  the 
demand :  "  On  what  authority  do  you  affirm  that  your 
'  right '  should  be  my  '  right '  ?  "  Never  were  there  so  many 
agitations  for  moral  reform,  and  never  has  there  been  such 
evident  lack  of  a  recognized  tribunal  of  final  appeal,  to  pass 
on  the  justice  of  the  programs.  In  the  rarest  instances  only 
can  the  representatives  of  reform,  and  of  the  condition  or 
institution  to  be  reformed,  be  brought  to  recognize  the  same 
ethical  postulates  as  arbitrators  of  their  differences. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  process-conception  of  life  that  can 
act  directly  upon  men's  moral  attitude.  So  far,  however,  as 
our  social  difficulties  have  their  roots  in  mental  confusion,  the 
view  of  human  experience  as  a  process  promises  to  yield  not 
only  a  valid  explanation  of  evolution  of  moral  judgments,  but 
the  most  convincing  premises  for  constructive  ethical  theory. 
We  venture  a  thesis,  therefore,  which  must  be  answerable  to 
the  whole  history  of  morality  and  of  ethics,  viz. : 

All  the  systems  of  ethics,  and  all  the  codes  of  morals, 
have  been  men's  gro pings  toivard  ability  to  express  this  basic 
judgment:  That  is  good,  for  me  or  for  the  world  around  me, 
which  promotes  the  on-going  of  the  social  process.  That  is 
had,  for  me  or  for  the  world  around  me,  zvhich  retards  the 
on-going  of  the  social  process. 

Review  of  ethical  valuations,  or  study  of  moral  problems, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  process-conception,  will  bring  to 
light  the  enormous  difference  between  the  mental  attitude  cor- 
responding to  this  innocent  formula,  and  that  represented  by 
any  of  the  categorical  systems  of  ethics.  Of  this  more  must 
be  said  in  a  later  chapter.  In  a  word,  however,  the  process- 
conception  of  life  finds  little  place,  within  the  range  of  finite 


PROCESS-CONCEPTION  AND  MORAL  JUDGMENTS       677 

intelligence,  for  absolute  distinctions  of  good  and  bad  between 
types  of  concrete  acts.  The  human  situation  being  always 
and  everywhere!  either  actually  or  potentially,  a  becoming, 
human  conduct  is  always  good  or  bad  according  to  the 
demands  of  the  particular  stage  of  the  process  to  which  it 
is  referred,  or  in  which  it  must  function.  In  finite  conditions, 
and  for  finite  intelligence,  there  is  hardly  more  possibility  of 
discovering  an  absolute  good  or  bad  in  concrete  acts,  than  there 
is  in  determining  an  absolute  up  or  down  in  space.  Our  acts 
are  all  relative  to  a  process  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  may  be 
infinite  in  all  its  dimensions.  Our  judgments  have  to  be 
relative  to  so  much  of  the  process  as  we  can  make  out.  So 
soon  as  we  clearly  understand  this  condition,  we  realize  the 
vanity  of  all  the  absolute  or  categorical  systems  of  ethics. 

Men  have  entertained  many  variations  of  belief  that  reve- 
lations of  absolute  morality  have  come  from  supernatural 
sources.  This  can  never  have  been  the  case  in  the  sense  vul- 
garly imagined.  The  method  of  deriving  moral  judgments 
in  the  past  is  relatively  clear.  The  same  method  must  be  fol- 
lowed in  principle  in  the  future.  In  the  chapters  to  follow 
we  shall  outline  further  implications  of  the  method. 


CHAPTER  XLV 

THE    SOCIOLOGICAL    CONTENT    OF   MORAL   JUDGMENTS 

We  have  thus,  in  the  first  place  (chaps.  43,  44),  recalled 
rudimentary  psychological  facts  about  the  form,  the  process, 
and  the  working  criteria  of  ethical  valuation.  In  the  second 
place  (Parts  II-VI),  we  have  reviewed  the  program  of  soci- 
ology in  its  attempt  to  see  all  human  activities,  so  far  as  they  can 
be  visualized  at  all,  in  their  real  interdependencies  with  each 
other.  All  this  is  in  effect  incidental  to  our  present  argument 
that  the  task  which  sociology  has  undertaken  must  be  per- 
formed before  there  is  a  secure  intellectual  criterion  of  moral 
judgments.  Otherwise  expressed,  in  proportion  as  the  task 
of  sociology  is  performed,  and  in  proportion  as  the  work  of 
sociology  is  accepted  by  society,  will  the  intellectual  conditions 
for  consensus  of  ethical  judgments  be  satisfied. 

Assuming  then  our  statement  of  the  psychological  and  of 
the  sociological  factors,  in  organizing  interpretations  of  life, 
we  have  not  yet  reached  the  most  important  clue  to  criticism 
of  conduct- judgments.  What  has  been  said  may  be  restated 
in  more  general  form,  and  the  judgments  which  make  up  our 
body  of  ethics  will  at  once  appear  to  have  a  place  within  this 
general  setting,  viz. :  All  ethical  judgments  are  virtually  esti- 
mates of  the  relation  of  subordinate  parts  of  conduct  to  the 
largest  wholes  brought  into  calculation.  All  ethical  judg- 
ments are  not  only  telic  in  form ;  they  are  not  only  compari- 
sons of  concrete  particulars  with  a  generalized  standard ;  that 
standard  is  not  merely  a  version  of  human  conditions ;  but  all 
these  facts  are  parts  of  the  more  comprehensive  fact  that 
conduct-valuations  are  always  appraisals  of  the  ratio  between 
the  particular  conduct  in  question  and  the  largest  complex  of 
human  conditions  that  the  mind  at  the  moment  of  judging  is 
able  to  consider. 

For  illustration,  let  us  take  a  case  in  the  field  of  so-called 

678 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  CONTENT  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  679 

individual  ethics.  Let  us  assume  that  we  are  able  in  the  hypo- 
thetical case  to  exclude  all  social  considerations.  Suppose 
then  the  conduct  in  question  is  the  eating  of  a  given  dinner. 
That  conduct  has  absolutely  no  value  for  me  until  I  connect 
it  in  consciousness  with  myself  as  an  end.  If,  then,  I  con- 
sider my  hunger  purely  as  a  sensation,  and  the  eating  purely 
as  a  means  of  substituting  another  sensation,  I  at  once  have  a 
criterion  in  accordance  with  which  I  pronounce  the  eating 
good.  Myself  in  a  state  of  satisfaction  is  more  than  myself 
in  a  state  of  want,  and  the  conduct  that  contributes  to  that 
increase  of  myself  I  at  once  call  good.  But  suppose  I  think 
of  myself,  not  merely  as  capable  of  enjoying  the  pleasures  of 
eating,  but  as  capable  of  winning  an  athletic  contest,  and 
suppose  I  am  convinced  that  putting  a  limit  on  the  quantity 
or  quality  of  my  eating  is  a  condition  of  my  winning.  Myself 
as  eating  the  food  which  affords  less  satisfaction  to  the  taste, 
but  which  may  fit  me  to  win  the  event,  is  rated  as  a  larger 
self  than  the  self  eating  to  the  exclusion  of  winning.  Again, 
I  may  think  of  myself  as  capable,  not  merely  of  agreeable 
bodily  sensations  and  of  athletic  prowess,  but  also  of  mental 
achievement.  I  may  estimate  myself  as  more  of  a  man  when 
doing  certain  thinking  than  when  performing  certain  physical 
feats.  I  may  discover  that  the  athletic  winning  may  be  a 
bar  to  the  contemplated  thinking.  I  may  find  that  less  win- 
ning and  different  eating  will  promote  my  mental  activity. 
Thereupon  myself  as  the  thinking  man  towers  up  in  com- 
parison with  myself  as  less  than  the  thinker,  and  I  perhaps 
once  more  reverse  my  judgment  about  that  particular  dinner. 
It  is  good  for  the  sensuous  part  of  me,  it  is  bad  for  the  ath- 
letic, it  is  good  for  the  intellectual,  possibly  it  might  again  be 
judged  as  bad  relatively  to  myself  considered  as  spiritual  in 
the  pietistic  sense. 

Whenever  we  form  an  estimate  of  value  in  the  realm  of 
individual  ethics,  it  is  always  implicitly  in  this  mold.  Con- 
duct of  a  lesser  self  comes  into  comparison  with  conduct  of  a 
self  held  to  be  more  or  greater.     The  conduct  is  pronounced 


68o  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

good  or  bad  according  as  it  tends  to  promote  the  ends  of  the 
one  or  the  other.  The  fact  that  we  differ  interminably  as  to 
what  is  the  greater  and  the  lesser  self  does  not  affect  the 
main  proposition.  Before  we  can  have  a  generally  accepted 
system  of  individual  ethics,  we  must  have  a  generally  accepted 
philosophy  of  the  individual.  Our  judgment  of  specific  indi- 
vidual acts  or  programs  inevitably  depends  upon  our  percep- 
tion of  the  scope  and  balance  of  individual  life  in  general. 
For  example,  certain  good  people  hold  that  it  is  immoral  to 
play  whist  or  to  visit  the  theater.  Other  people,  who  claim 
equal  authority  for  their  judgment,  hold  that  it  is  sometimes 
immoral  not  to  play  whist  or  visit  the  theater.  They  say  that 
there  is  no  moral  law  for  whist  or  the  theater  which  is  not 
equally  valid  in  principle  for  dominoes  or  the  lawn  party; 
namely,  the  law  of  utility  for  the  purpose  of  the  whole  man. 
Here,  then,  is  a  specific  opposition  that  betrays  a  deeper 
antithesis  of  the  implied  philosophies.  The  one  view  presup- 
poses a  conception  of  life  as  a  discipline  of  renunciation.  The 
other  regards  life  as  an  economy  of  appropriation.  The  one 
view  tends  to  regard  that  life  as  largest  which  foregoes  the 
most.  The  other  view  tends  to  appraise  that  life  as  largest 
which  assimilates  the  most.  Between  two  such  contradictory 
philosophies  there  can  be  only  accidental  agreement  on  par- 
ticular issues.  To  arrive  at  harmonious  judgments  of  good, 
we  must  reach  common  ground  in  our  general  conceptions  of 
life.  The  universal  fact  displayed  in  all  cases  of  the  most  con- 
tradictory valuation  is  that  ethical  judgments  are  always 
implicit  estimates  of  the  value  of  mediate  ends  as  tributary 
to  larger  ends.  Our  conception  of  these  larger  ends  must  be 
fixed  before  there  can  be  a  rational  ground  for  identity  of 
minor  judgments. 

What  is  true  of  conduct  thought  of  as  purely  individual  is 
true  of  all  conduct  upon  which  we  pass  valuations.  We  have 
all  sorts  of  conventional  and  arbitrary  standards  of  greater 
and  less.  In  a  situation  in  which  the  fighting  man  is  the 
greatest  man,  the  things  that  tend  to  make  more  fighters  are 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  CONTENT  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  68i 

good,  while  the  things  that  divert  possible  fighting  strength 
into  industry  or  discovery  or  other  activities  of  non-militant 
morality  are  bad.  Tliis  does  not  affect  the  underlying  prin- 
ciple that  our  conduct- judgments  are  alw^ays  verdicts  in 
approval  of  those  things  which  make  for  what  we  think  is 
more  and  bigger,  and  of  disapproval  of  those  things  which 
make  for  that  which  we  estimate  as  lesser  and  smaller.  In  the 
case  of  individual  estimates,  as  we  have  just  seen,  the  alterna- 
tives are  a  less  and  a  more  complete  condition  of  the  indi- 
vidual; that  is,  the  individual  as  partial,  in  comparison  with 
the  individual  contemplated  as  more  fully  realized.  When  we 
come  to  value  conduct  as  a  social  phenomenon,  our  judgment 
always  proceeds  in  the  same  form.  We  always  have  some 
sort  of  a  major  premise  of  the  group  as  greater  than  the  indi- 
vidual. We  consequently  always  pronounce  that  conduct  good 
which  promises  to  make  for  the  ends  of  the  group  as  against 
the  conflicting  ends  of  the  individual.^  The  only  limit  to  this 
judgment  is  encountered  when  we  contemplate  conduct  which 
not  merely  subordinates  the  individual  to  the  group,  but  which 
suppresses  manifestations  of  the  individual  which  are  essential 
to  our  conceptions  of  the  absolute  worth  of  the  individual; 
e.  g.,  slavery,  the  suttee,  etc.^ 

We  have  thus  proposed  a  formal  statement  of  all  conduct- 
problems.  Men  are  implicitly  deciding  which  self  is  the 
greater,  and  whether  in  a  given  instance  there  is  anything 
greater  than  self.  When  we  deal  with  conduct- judgments 
disinterestedly,  our  problem  always  is  to  decide  which  of  two 
or  more  contrasted  societary  activities  is  most  and  biggest,  and 
then  whether  they  must  be  rated  as  mutually  exclusive,  or  as 
principal  and  subordinate. 

Our  statement  of  conduct-problems  in  terms  of  quantity  is 
of  course  highly  elliptical,  but  it  visualizes  the  essential  form 
of  the  problem.    It  also  serves  to  introduce  our  application  of 

*  Cf.  Baldwin,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretation,  pp.  29-32. 
'Cf.    Bosanquet,    The   Philosophy   of    the   State;     on    the    Conception    of 
Liberty,  pp.   124-50. 


682  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  formal  statement  to  the  social  division  of  conduct-problems, 
namely :  Our  judgment  of  conduct  in  association  akvays  tends 
to  appraisal  of  it  as  good  or  bad  according  to  its  assumed  effects 
iipon  the  largest  range  of  associations  that  zve  can  take  into 
account.  This  statement  is  also  elliptical,  but  it  would  distract 
attention  from  the  main  point  if  we  should  attempt  here  to 
make  it  more  precise. 

Recurring  now  to  our  analysis  of  the  social  process  as  a 
whole,  we  may  restate  the  reality  in  which  the  sociologist  finds 
the  working  criterion  of  moral  values  as  follows :  The  life  of 
the  individual,  according  to  the  view  of  the  indizddual  which 
we  have  proposed,  is  to  he  considered  as  a  process  of  achieving 
the  self  given  in  the  interests  which  prompt  the  health,  wealth, 
sociability,  knowledge,  beauty,  and  Tightness  desires,  but  this 
process  produces  and  is  produced  by  the  social  process.  Fol- 
lowing the  same  line  of  analysis,  we  have  as  our  conception  of 
the  social  process  :  Association  is  a  continuous  process  of  real- 
izing an  increased  aggregate  and  juster  proportions  of  the 
health,  zvealth,  sociability,  knoidedge,  beauty,  and  Tightness 
satisfactions  in  the  persons  associating.  This  is  the  end  visible 
as  interpretation  and  justification  of  the  whole  social  process. 
All  that  goes  on  among  men  actually  is  valued  by  them  with 
conscious  or  unconscious  reference  to  its  bearings  upon  some 
conception  of  these  goods,  either  severally  or  collectively.  We 
have  no  other  real  measure  to  apply  in  a  theory  of  conduct- 
value. 

Institutions,  or  social  activities,  as  distinguished  from 
activities  regarded  as  purely  individual,  have  their  meaning  as 
better  or  worse  methods  of  promoting  achievement  and  dis- 
tribution of  these  satisfactions.  The  very  fact  of  association, 
however,  displays  a  relatively  advanced  stage  of  the  process  of 
gaining  these  satisfactions.  Associations,  their  means,  and 
their  methods,  arc  media  by  which  already  complicated  com- 
binations of  these  satisfactions  and  of  means  of  gaining  them 
are  guarded  and  developed.  An  association  or  an  institution 
(which  is  merely  a  method  of  activity  in  association)  may  not 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  CONTENT  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  683 

be  judged,  therefore,  with  reference  to  a  single  sort  of  satis- 
faction abstracted  from  the  rest.  Government,  for  instance,  is 
not  a  means  of  regulating  men  merely  as  seekers  of  the  socia- 
bility satisfaction.  It  would,  indeed,  be  possible  to  make  out  a 
good  case  for  abstract  classification  of  government  as  pre- 
dominantly a  function  of  sociability.  In  practice,  however, 
government  is  chiefly  an  activity  within  the  wealth  realm,  and 
only  secondarily  within  each  of  the  other  realms  of  interest. 
So  of  the  content,  as  distinguished  from  the  form,  in  the  case 
of  every  other  institution  of  society.  In  elaborating  a  working 
theory  of  social  ethics,  therefore,  we  find  ourselves  practically 
concerned  not  directly  with  the  ends  of  human  life  themselves. 
Our  problems  are,  in  the  first  instance,  the  secondary  ones 
presented  by  the  subsidiary  means  which  associations  have 
developed  as  their  ways  of  promoting  the  ends  of  life.  In  other 
words,  our  problem  is :  "  The  ultimate  end  that  gives  value  to 
all  conduct  being  the  social  process  as  above  formulated,  what 
is  the  value  of  each  and  every  mode  of  associated  activity,  con- 
sidered as  a  positive  or  negative  means  to  that  end?"^ 

This  makes  the  whole  process  of  judging  conduct  a  process 
of  discovering  social  functions  and  relativities. 

We  may  recapitulate  the  argument  as  follows : 

1.  The  essential  ethical  question  in  all  cases  is:  What  is 
the  value  of  each  alternative  course  of  conduct  possible  in  a 
given  situation  in  connection  with  the  whole  system  of  relations 
within  which  it  must  function? 

2.  The  ultimate  social  end  which  we  can  discover  is  pro- 
gressive improvement  in  so  accommodating  ourselves  to  each 
other  that  increasing  proportions  of  the  world's  population 
will  share  in  a  constant  approach  toward  more  and  better  satis- 
faction of  the  health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  beauty, 
and  rightness  desires. 

3.  That  must  count  with  us  as  morally  good  which  seems 
to  us  on  the  whole  to  make  toward  the  end  so  formulated. 

'  For  elaboration  of  this  department  of  the  subject  vide  Professor  C.  R. 
Henderson's  articles  cited  on  p.    705. 


684  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Our  conclusion  as  to  the  content  of  moral  conduct,  rather 
than  our  method  of  reaching  it,  has  been  expressed  in  many- 
variations,  from  Plato  down.  Thus:  "What  are  the  things 
that  severally  profit  us  ?  Health  and  strength,  and  beauty  and 
wealth."  "  Next  let  us  consider  the  goods  of  the  soul ;  these 
are  temperance,  justice,  courage,  quickness  of  apprehension, 
memory,  magnificence,  and  the  like."  * 

A  like  view  is  implied  by  Bowne's  formula :  "  The  aim  of 
conduct  is  not  abstract  virtue,  but  fulness  and  richness  of 
life."  5 

Hoffding  indicates  a  similar  conclusion  in  a  negative  form 
of  expression :  "  A  society  of  human  personalities  can  be 
perfect  only  when  none  of  its  members  uses  others  as  mere 
means,  and  when  no  portion  of  the  personality  of  any  indi- 
vidual member  is  unsymmetrically   favored  or   repressed."  ® 

We  have  thus  found  that,  so  far  as  the  psychological  process 
of  ethical  valuation  is  concerned,  all  judgments  of  conduct  are 
telic.  "  The  adjustment  of  habits  to  ends,  through  the  medium 
of  the  problematic,  doubtful,  precarious  situation,  is  the  struc- 
tural form  upon  which  present  intelligence  and  emotion  are 
built.  It  remains  the  ground  pattern."^  Our  conduct- 
valuations  implicitly  assert :  The  act  in  question  does  or  does 
not  make  for  such  and  such  an  end  expressly  or  impliedly 
assumed  to  be  desirable. 

Accordingly,  we  may  hope  that  the  name  prqposed  above 
for  the  ethical  system  which  the  process-conception  of  life 
tends  to  construct  m3y  prove  to  be  serviceable  as  more  than  a 
mere  label.  We  make  use  of  the  term  tclici'sm  as  the  title  for 
our  method  of  reaching  ethical  valuations,  because  we  discover 
that  the  method  which  is  actual,  and  actual  because  it  is  psy- 
chologically necessary,  consists  in  determining  the  relations  of 
each  and  every  activity  to  more  and  more  remote  ends,  until 

*  Meno  ;  Jowett's  translation,  I,  263.  For  Plato's  recognition  of  religion 
cf.  p.  276. 

•  Principles  of  Ethics,  Preface,  p.  iv.  •  Ethik,  p.  200. 

^  Professor  John  Dewey,  Psychological  Review,  Vol.  IX,  p.  229. 


THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  CONTENT  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  685 

the  last  end  or  combination  of  ends  is  brought  into  considera- 
tion which  the  mind  can  contemplate.^  This  system  promises, 
on  the  one  hand,  to  furnish  a  definite  content,  in  place  of  the 
merely  formal  conception  "  evolutionary  ethics,"  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  its  calculation  of  ends  is  inclusive,  instead  of 
stopping  with  the  small  arc  of  the  horizon  contemplated  by 
nineteenth-century  utilitarianism. 

'  For  an  important  note  on  derivatives  from  the  verb  reX^w,  and  the 
adjective  reXi/cij,  vide  Ward,  Outlines  of  Sociology,  p.  180.  It  should,  be 
added  that  if  there  is  any  merit  in  the  present  suggestion,  either  as  to  form  or 
content,  it  is  largely  due  to  Dr.  Ward  rather  than  to  myself.  The  case  is  not 
altered  by  the  fact  that  he  will  hardly  be  able  to  accept  all  that  the  present 
argument  involves. 


CHAPTER   XLVI 

WORKING    TESTS    OF    ETHICAL    VALUATIONS 

In  our  rapid  outline  of  the  argument,  we  have  referred  to 
three  distinct  groups  of  phenomena  in  which  the  process  of 
conduct-valuation  may  be  traced :  first,  the  ordinary  mental 
activities  of  the  average  man ;  second,  the  systems  of  the 
philosophers;  and,  third,  critical  psychological  analysis.  If 
appeal  be  taken  to  either  of  these  sources  of  evidence,  the 
result  will  be  the  same.  Men's  judgments  are  in  the  form 
which  we  have  stated.  The  ordinary  man  does  not  become 
aware  of  the  general  ends  to  which  his  conduct  must  be  referred 
in  order  to  give  it  adequate  explanation.  The  philosopher,  as 
we  have  seen,  deceives  himself  with  abstract  terms,  and  conse- 
quently is  often  able  to  imagine  that  his  judgments  of  ethical 
value  are  applications  of  utterly  transcendental  criteria.  The 
psychologist,  reducing  all  activity  to  terms  of  stimulus  and 
attention  and  choice,  confirms  our  claim  that  sentient  activity, 
whether  the  plain  man's  practice  or  the  philosopher's  theory, 
always  proceeds  with  implied,  if  not  conscious,  reference  to 
some  conception  of  the  social  process  within  which  that  activity 
derives  its  meaning.  By  way  of  parenthesis,  we  may  reiterate 
our  earlier  observation,  that  the  methods  of  treating  history 
latterly  in  vogue  leave  very  much  to  be  desired  in  the  way  of 
exhibiting  the  functional  values  of  the  activities  which  have 
filled  up  the  life  of  men  in  the  past.  The  perspective  of  our 
ethical  judgments  will  be  confused  and  vague,  until  history 
shall  have  been  so  reorganized  as  to  exhibit  the  reality  of  the 
social  process,  under  the  categories  of  content  and  function 
which  we  are  beginning  to  find  most  significant.  We  shall  not 
pass  correct  judgments  upon  the  value  of  past  actions  until  we 
can  see,  of  every  period  worth  considering,  just  how  it 
co-operated  with  previous  periods  with  respect  to  this  process 
of  unfolding,   adjusting,   and  satisfying  the  cardinal   human 

686 


WORKING  TESTS  OF  ETHICAL  VALUATIONS  687 

desires.  Nor  shall  we  be  very  expert  in  appraising  alternatives 
of  conduct  in  our  own  time  until  we  can  state  to  ourselves  the 
problems  of  our  time  in  terms  of  relation  to  this  process. 

We  recur  to  the  claim  already  urged,  that  the  best  prospect 
in  sight  for  a  basis  of  common  ethical  belief  is  in  connection 
with  theoretical  and  practical  gravitation  toward  adoption  of 
the  fundamental  sociology  and  ethics  above  outlined.  It  is  not 
merely  a  theory  of  the  sociologist  that  we  should  adopt  this 
standard.  It  is  a  demonstrable  psychological  fact  that  men 
have  always  tended  toward  the  use  of  this  standard  in  all  their 
ethical  judgments.  In  the  last  resort  we  are  forced  to  value 
as  good  whatever  seems  to  us  on  the  whole  to  promote  the  life- 
process  ;  we  are  compelled  to  rate  that  as  bad  which  seems  to 
us  on  the  whole  to  retard  the  process ;  that  is,  the  sociological 
criterion  of  all  conduct  is  identical  in  form  with  the  psychology 
of  conduct- judgments  in  general,  namely,  a  measurement  or 
estimate  of  its  use  in  the  life-process.  The  sociological  criterion 
is  merely  an  extension  and  generalization  of  the  common  man's 
way  of  judging  whether  a  given  effort  is  worth  while  or  not. 
The  narrowest  individual  judgment  of  conduct  amounts  to  this  : 
Will  the  effort  give  me  more  agreeable  feeling?  The  socio- 
logical criterion  amounts  to  this :  Will  the  effort  give  more 
agreeable  feeling  to  those  who  can  trace  its  results  farthest  in 
the  whole  social  process,  and  whose  feeling  harmonizes  with 
the  utmost  that  can  be  learned  about  promoting  the  process? 
This  is  the  sense  in  which  .Herbert  Spencer's  remark  is  true: 
"  Ethics  becomes  nothing  else  than  a  definite  account  of  the 
forms  of  conduct  fitted  to  the  associated  state."  ^ 

Mr.  Spencer  made  the  mistake  of  assuming  a  statical  idea 
which  the  logic  of  the  evolutionary  conception  properly 
excludes,  namely,  that  a  theory  of  an  absolutely  perfect  condi- 
tion is  possible.  Under  the  stimulus  of  the  evolutionary  con- 
ception, on  the  contrary,  the  psychologists  and  the  sociologists 
are  converging  upon  the  interpretation  that  movement  is  the 
irreducible  substance  of  everything.      Status  is  only  a  con- 

^  Principles  of  Ethics,  sec.  48. 


688  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

venient  form  of  visualizing  the  changing.  Permanent  status 
is  something  of  which  we  have  no  knowledge.  Mr.  Spencer 
partially  realized  his  mistake,  and  The  Data  of  Ethics  may  be 
regarded  as  a  virtual  recantation  of  the  essential  error  in 
Social  Statics.  The  first  book  of  the  Principles  of  Ethics  was 
an  important  contribution  to  ethical  theory,  but,  after  all,  it 
did  not  get  rid  of  the  mischievous  assumption.  The  revolution 
which  we  have  above  predicted,  as  the  effect  of  continued 
application  of  the  psychological  and  sociological  interpreta- 
tion of  life,  is  likely  to  be  earliest  manifest  in  disrepute  of  the 
systems  of  theory  and  practice  which  presume  upon  the  statical 
conception. 

Until  very  recently,  for  example,  practically  all  ethical 
systems  have  assumed,  first,  persons  as  fixed  quantities,  and, 
second,  human  relations  as  conditions  which  could  be  treated 
for  ethical  purposes  as  statical.  These  systems  have  then 
designated  that  man  or  that  act  as  good  that  had  such  and  such 
a  relation  to  the  stereotyped  order  of  the  world.  In  other 
words,  our  ethical  theorists  have  assumed  that  life  is  like  a 
bicycle  of  a  standard  model.  It  is  made  up  of  individual  parts 
which  may  be  displaced  by  duplicate  parts  that  will  fit  as  well  as 
the  originals  into  the  machine.  The  duplicate  parts  are  good 
when  they  are  capable  of  such  adjustment.  Parts  that  refuse 
to  assemble  in  the  standard  model  are  bad.  It  is  a  platitude, 
however,  to  declare  that  life  is  not  like  a  machine  of  any  type. 
It  is  somewhat  more  like  the  progression  from  the  clumsiest 
velocipede  to  the  latest  type  of  bicycle;  but  this  is  also  an 
extremely  defective  analogy,  because  the  life-process  is 
immanent,  not  mechanical.  It  is  not  a  process  that  is  put 
together  as  the  machinist  assembles  parts  of  a  machine  from 
many  sources;  but  movement  as  opposed  to  status  is  the  idea 
for  the  illustration  to  convey. 

Again,  the  good  man  or  the  good  act  is  the  one  that  facili- 
tates human  development  at  the  precise  point  of  contact  with 
the  main  process.  The  same  man  or  act  might  be  bad  at  an 
earlier  or  later  stage  of  the  process,  because  incapable  of  adjust- 


WORKING  TESTS  OF  ETHICAL  VALUATIONS  689 

ment  with  that  stage.  In  brief,  as  we  saw  above,  human  good 
is  not  the  good  of  rest  in  a  permanent  status,  but  of  adaptation 
in  a  moving  process.  This  being  the  case,  our  only  hope  of 
agreement  about  moral  standards  depends  upon  getting  a  soci- 
ology that  will  give  us  common  insight  into  the  details  of  the 
life-process.  The  question  in  point,  when  we  try  to  gauge 
moral  value  is :  Does  this  retard  or  promote  the  precise  stage 
of  the  life-process  in  which  it  must  function?  This  question 
must  remain  an  enigma  in  the  precise  degree  in  which  we  lack 
a  sociology  adequate  to  interpret  the  life-process.  At  all 
events,  the  net  result  of  psychological  and  sociological  analysis 
for  ethical  purposes  up  to  date  is  a  certain  quantum  of  detail 
in  specification  of  this  insight  that  the  main  situation  is  inces- 
sant movement,  having  no  quality  of  rest,  but  consisting  of  a 
constant  process,  not  in  a  straight  line,  but,  taking  large  periods 
of  time  into  the  field  of  view,  consistently  toward  something 
more  of  the  process,  which  to  our  ken  is  interminable.  This  is 
the  most  far-sighted  view  of  the  main  fact  that  we  have 
reached,  and  it  furnishes  the  positive  basis  of  ethical  presump- 
tion, in  contrast  with  the  speculative  premises  that  have  been 
accepted  hitherto.  This  is  the  quasi-absolute  standard  of 
ethical  value,  which  is  the  nearest  practical  approach  to  finality. 


CHAPTER    XLVII 
SOCIOLOGICAL   PREREQUISITES   FOR   ETHICAL  VALUATION 

What  has  been  said  so  far  reduces  to  this :  If  we  are  to 
reach  moral  judgments  that  may  appeal  to  science  for  sanction, 
we  must  first  arrive  at  a  tenable  view  of  life  in  general.  This 
will  include,  if  our  interpretation  is  correct,  the  reading  of  life 
in  accordance  with  the  categories  which  the  sociologists  find 
given  in  the  social  reality.  We  must  have,  second,  as  a  kind 
of  minor  premise,  an  adequate  survey  of  the  social  process  in 
the  concrete.  The  schedule  below  exhibits  the  groups  of  par- 
ticulars which  are  necessary  in  order  that  we  may  form  such  an 
adequate  conception  of  any  past  situation.  Ability  to  survey 
a  sufficient  series  of  past  situations  in  this  completeness  is  not 
only  requisite  to  comprehension  of  the  situations  themselves, 
but  it  is  the  necessary  presumption  of  all  generalizations  of 
laws  alleged  to  be  exemplified  in  the  passage  of  these  situations 
into  each  other. 

That  is,  the  ideal  of  history,  on  its  descriptive  side,  would 
require  that  it  should  constitute  an  uninterrupted  dissolving 
view  of  one  situation  following  another,  with  constantly  varied 
distribution  of  effort,  both  in  quantity  and  quality,  in  the 
departments  of  activity  to  be  specified.  Then  we  must  learn 
to  interpret  the  existing  situation  in  terms  of  the  same  cate- 
gories. If  we  omit  one  or  more  of  these  phases  of  activity,  our 
picture  is  a  distorted  account  of  the  situation,  whether  past  or 
present.  The  claims  of  the  historians  since  Green,  that  they  all 
occupy  the  sociological  point  of  view,  seem  to  the  sociologists 
peculiarly  naive.  The  sociological  point  of  view  is  something 
essentially  different  from  a  mere  shifting  of  attention  from  the 
trifling  doings  of  courts  and  camps  to  unassorted  or  uncritically 
assorted  commonplaces  about  the  masses.^  Having  an  ade- 
quate conception  of  the  social  process  in  general,  the  knowledge 

'  Cf.  above,  chap.  35,  sec.  7. 

690 


SOCIOLOGICAL  PREREQUISITES  691 

which  we  need  in  order  to  understand  a  particular  situation 
includes  the  following : 

1.  A  schedule  of  the  sanitary  and  hygienic  achievements 
and  needs  of  the  civilization;  that  is,  the  situation  so  far  as  it 
primarily  concerns  physical  well-being. 

2.  A  schedule  of  the  economic  achievements  and  needs  of 
the  period ;  that  is,  the  situation  so  far  as  it  primarily  concerns 
human  control  of  the  resources  of  nature. 

3.  A  schedule  of  the  socializing  achievements  and  needs  of 
the  period;  that  is,  the  situation  so  far  as  it  primarily  concerns 
the  adjustment  of  social  relations ;  in  other  words,  the  current 
apportionment  among  individuals  of  access  to  the  opportunities 
of  nature  and  society. 

4.  A  schedule  of  the  scientific  achievements  and  needs  of 
the  period ;  that  is,  the  situation  so  far  as  it  primarily  concerns 
discovery  of  truth  and  degree  of  its  dissemination  among  the 
people. 

5.  A  schedule  of  the  aesthetic  achievements  and  needs  of 
the  civilization ;  that  is,  the  situation  so  far  as  it  primarily  con^ 
cerns  artistic  creation  and  appropriation. 

6.  A  schedule  of  the  ethical  achievements  and  needs  of  the 
period ;  that  is,  the  situation  so  far  as  it  primarily  concerns  the 
intellectual  and  moral  development  of  the  population.^ 

History  is  useful  as  science  in  proportion  as  it  gives  us 
these  classes  of  facts  in  their  actual  concurrence  and  correla- 
tion. Most  of  this  service  is  conspicuously  not  performed  by 
history  as  yet.  Until  history  renders  this  service  it  will  con- 
tinue to  be  a  much  overrated  factor  in  human  knowledge.  Until 
we  have  an  account  of  the  present  also,  which  will  give  to  us 
the  situation  under  the  same  heads,  so  that  we  can  see  the 
phenomena  in  their  co-operation  with  each  other,  we  cannot 
understand  our  own  time  and  place.  One  of  the  immediate 
tasks  of  the  sociologists  is  to  make  people,  and  especially  the 
historians,  see  that  they  are  dealing  with  meaningless  scraps  of 

^  These  schedules  are  elaborated  in  chaps.  49  and  50. 


692  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

social  information,  until  they  co-operate  to  put  all  the  scraps 
into  an  exhibit  which  will  present  to  us  the  actual  whole. 

Our  present  "scientific"  social  writers  do  not  do  this. 
One  deals  with  the  aesthetic  element,  and,  while  he  had  in 
mind  something  of  the  general  facts  of  society  when  he 
started,  he  is  soon  lost  in  the  artistic  idea,  and  the  rest  is  gone. 
So  with  the  economist.  Adam  Smith  had  in  mind  nearly,  if 
not  quite,  all  this,  but  his  successors  have  spent  their  time  on 
the  economic  fragment,  and  have  forgotten  the  remaining 
contents  of  life.  Like  a  great  many  disciples,  they  have 
learned  only  one  fragment  of  their  master,  which  practically 
vitiates  the  teaching  of  the  master.  He  wanted  to  investigate 
all  the  divisions  of  life  just  as  thoroughly  as  he  investigated 
the  economic  division.  Our  social  sciences  in  the  nineteenth 
century  have  been  provincial  because  they  have  not  sufficiently 
looked  at  the  other  divisions  of  life,  all  of  which  are  taken  for 
granted,  and  are  always  involved  in  the  conclusions  of  each. 
The  sociologists  today  are  sounding  the  alarm,  and  they 
demand  that,  while  we  continue  to  specialize,  we  must  keep  our 
vision  from  being  so  microscopic  that  we  cannot  see  the  whole. 

Our  judgments  of  social  morality  always  presuppose  an 
assumption  about  the  whole  social  situation.  We  have  need 
of  a  generally  accepted  assumption,  conformed  to  the  actual 
social  fact,  as  the  basis  of  a  common  ethic.  The  schedules 
just  suggested  would  constitute  a  general  survey  of  the  real 
human  process  at  the  point  where  we  have  to  deal  with  it, 
whether  in  the  past  or  in  the  present.  If  we  do  not  command 
these  two  preliminaries,  our  working  moral  judgments  are 
merely  mechanical  applications  of  tradition,  or  they  are  wild 
guesses  at  relations  which  we  do  not  understand. 

Assuming,  however,  a  general  sociology,  and  a  fairly  ade- 
quate survey  of  the  present  situation,  the  third  process  involved 
in  a  valid  moral  judgment  is  an  estimate  of  uses;  that  is,  we 
have  to  decide  the  functional  value  of  this  or  that  possible 
action  in  the  working  balance  of  the  human  process  which  the 
foregoing  survey  discovers. 


SOCIOLOGICAL  PREREQUISITES  693 

No  wonder  that  there  is  so  Httle  in  common  between  the 
social  agitator  and  the  academic  sociologist.  The  former  is 
cocksure  what  things  are  going  to  the  devil,  and  what  things 
must  be  done  this  minute  for  social  salvation.  The  latter 
realizes  that  the  most  intricate  problem  which  the  human 
mind  ever  confronts  is  the  problem  of  antecedent  and  conse- 
quent, of  cause  and  effect,  in  human  society.  It  is  impossible 
for  him  to  be  as  sure  about  anything  as  the  irresponsible  ranter 
is  about  everything.  The  demands  upon  moral  courage 
increase  with  every  advance  in  our  apprehension  of  the 
chances  for  error  in  human  judgment.  Life  calls  for  decisions. 
It  is  sometimes  the  most  fatal  action  not  to  act.  In  spite  of 
the  awful  complexity  of  each  problem,  the  sociologist  must 
accept  the  responsibility  at  last  of  definite  judgments  about  the 
conduct  of  life.  The  wider  the  field  of  his  vision,  the  fewer 
people  will  he  satisfy  with  his  specific  judgments,  because  he 
can  convince  himself  only  about  general  lines  of  effort.  He 
knows  that  details  must  be  worked  out  by  others.  Between 
the  agitator  and  the  academic  theorist  is  the  great  social  body. 
The  mission  of  the  thinker  is  so  to  work  on  the  popular  mind 
that  everyday  judgments  of  values  will  tend  to  correct  them- 
selves by  ultimate  standards.  No  sociological  perspective  is 
correct  unless  it  turns  out  at  last  to  have  a  place  for  the  angle 
of  vision  which  belongs  to  people  at  different  posts  in  the 
social  process.  The  distinct  work  of  the  philosophical  sociolo- 
gist is  to  organize  the  elements  of  social  knowledge  into  a 
common  property  of  social  philosophy.  The  test  of  that  phi- 
losophy must  ultimately  be  its  adequacy  as  the  common  pre- 
sumption of  all  special  theory. 

Possibly  wef  may  have  seemed  to  base  our  reasoning  on 
a  preposterous  supposition.  We  may  have  appeared  to  assume 
that  the  average  man  may  be  expected  to  exploit  the  tech- 
nique of  psychology  and  ethics  and  sociology,  and  to  reach 
his  judgments  of  good  and  bad  by  rigidly  scientific  and  logical 
methods.  Nothing  of  the  sOrt  has  been  connoted  by  our 
thesisj  but  it  has  not  been  practicable  so  "  rightly  to  divide 


694  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  word  of  truth  "  that  the  phases  of  its  appHcation  to  special- 
ists and  laymen  respectively  could  be  sharply  discriminated. 
In  brief,  however,  the  main  proposition  is  this :  The  stand- 
ard psychological  form  of  all  moral  valuations,  whether  passed 
by  babes  or  philosophers,  is  telic :  when  we  pronounce  a  thing 
"  good,"  we  all  alike  do  so  because  we  believe  it  is  good  for 
something,  it  works  well  toward  ends  that  we  desire;  psy- 
chological analysis  of  the  content  of  supposed  absolute  criteria 
of  moral  values  shows  that  this  content  necessarily  consists 
of  some  reconstruction  of  human  conditions;  i.  e.,  the  nearest 
we  can  get  to  a  working  absolute  is  our  organization  of  what 
we  know  about  the  activities  going  forward  in  human  experi- 
ence ;  in  other  words,  however  imposing  the  names  with  which 
we  baptize  our  ultimate  ethical  standards,  they  cannot  rise  out 
of  the  same  psychological  rank  with  the  standard  of  the  plain 
man,  viz. :  How  does  it  work  in  the  conditions  which  I  can 
consider  ?  This  being  the  case,  the  obligation  rests  upon  the 
men  whose  function  is  to  generalize  methods  of  moral  valua- 
tion, to  stop  juggling  with  absolute  standards  that  are  not 
absolute,  and  frankly  to  undertake  the  work  of  organizing 
knowledge  of  relative  utilities  into  the  largest  philosophy  of 
ends  which  our  intelligence  can  construct.  This  is  simply 
another  way  of  saying  that  the  psychology  o-f  moral  judgment 
indicates  the  sociological  interpretation  of  human  activities  as 
the  ultimate  available  criterion  of  ethical  goods. 

The  universal  adoption  of  this  criterion  would  not  at  once 
introduce  unanimity  of  moral  judgments.  If  we  agreed  as  to 
the  standa.rd  of  cfljligation,  we  should  still  disagree  as  to 
whether  the  standard  required  the  American  government  to 
declare  its  ultimate  policy  toward  the  Philippines,  or  whether 
the  United  States  should  cdntrol  the  isthmian  canal,  or 
whether  the  Bible  should  1)e  read  in  the  public  schools,  or 
whether  our  nation  should  enter  into  political  alliances  with 
other  nations,  or  whether  the  church  should  become  "  insti- 
tutional," or  whether  individuals  should  adventure  this,  that, 
or   the  other   secession   from   the   conventional   order.      The 


SOCIOLOGICAL  PREREQUISITES  695 

immediate  change  following  such  consensus  would  be  essen- 
tially the  adoption  of  a  uniform  intellectual  attitude  toward 
evidence  pertinent  to  questions  of  ethical  value. 

We  are  advertising  no  specific  for  the  manifold  moral 
maladies  which  betray  themselves  when  we  know  the  good  and 
choose  the  bad.  How  knowledge  of  the  good  may  be  turned 
into  choice  of  the  good  is  a  question  quite  independent  of  our 
present  problem.  We  have  been  trying  to  show  the  general 
direction  which  our  science  must  take  in  order  better  to  satisfy 
the  psychological  conditions  of  progress  toward  agreement 
about  the  essential  marks  of  ethical  value.  The  process  of 
human  life  as  men  know  it  is  the  implicit  criterion  of  the  good 
which  all  men  tend  to  apply.  The  ethics  that  has  the  promise 
of  final  authority  over  the  human  mind  is  the  ethics  of  all 
of  the  human  process  which  men  can  know.  The  only  main- 
tainable scale  of  moral  permissions  and  prohibitions  is  the 
scale  of  well-  or  ill-working  of  conduct  in  question,  in  larger 
and  larger  reaches  of  the  human  process. 

But  does  not  this  statement  itself  assume  that  the  ordinary 
man  will  have  a  social  horizon  and  a  degree  of  critical  power 
which  are  impossible?  Not  at  all.  The  methods  of  social 
pedagogy  will  doubtless  remain  for  many  generations  sub- 
stantially as  they  are  now.  The  average  man  will  get  his 
moral  judgments  through  conventional  channels,  but  when 
the  social  criterion  of  ethical  goods  prevails,  the  average  man 
will  merely  have  to  choose  between  alleged  statements  of  fact, 
not  between  apparently  irreconcilable  principles  for  determin- 
ing the  value  of  the  facts.  If  the  average  man  today  finds  it 
to  his  advantage  to  join  a  secret  society,  and  if  the  priest  tells 
him  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  he  should  not  join  a  secret 
society,  the  reconciliation  is  a  problem  of  two  unknown  quan- 
tities. If  the  social  criterion  were  frankly  and  directly  applied 
by  both,  instead  of  vaguely  and  unconsciously,  the  man  and 
the  priest  might  disagree  as  sharply  as  before,  but  the  prob- 
lem of  arranging  an  agreement  would  now  be  an  affair  of 
only  one  unknown  quantity  instead  of  two. 


696  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Comparatively  few  of  us  understand  the  construction  or 
the  operation  of  the  locomotive,  or  the  telephone,  or  the 
dynamo.  It  is  not  at  all  certain  that,  if  left  to  our  own 
devices,  we  should  always  act  in  accordance  with  the  best  of 
our  knowledge  about  these  machines.  This  much,  however, 
is  certain :  Practically  everybody  in  civilized  countries  has 
a  working  conception  that  the  principle  of  these  machines  is 
mechanical,  not  magical,  nor  miraculous,  nor  mystical.  Every- 
body knows  that,  if  an  expert  tells  us  we  must  act  so  and  so 
toward  the  machines  in  order  to  get  them  to  do  their  work, 
we  should  be  very  foolish  not  to  follow  his  directions.  This 
intellectual  attitude  toward  machinery  and  mechanical  authori- 
ties does  not  insure  us  against  occasional  silly  behavior  in 
handling  machines;  but  we  are  surely  better  off,  we  act  with 
more  general  consistency,  we  are  more  intelligent  and  docile 
about  machinery,  than  we  should  be  if  some  of  us  supposed, 
and  all  of  us  sometimes  supposed,  that  machinery  is  a  matter 
of  magic  or  miracle  or  arbitrary  supernatural  decree.  Our 
contention  is  that  the  like  would  be  the  case  with  reference  to 
social  conditions,  if  the  largest  attainable  conception  of  the 
social  process,  and  of  the  discoverable  laws  of  the  social  process, 
were  made  the  universal  norm  of  moral  valuation. 

Another  objection  may  be  anticipated,  viz. :  Is  not  all 
this  merely  another  agnosticism?  Our  answer  is  most 
emphatically  in  the  negative.  The  more  comprehensive  and 
circumstantial  our  knowledge  of  the  finite,  the  more  inevitably 
shall  we  need  to  rest  our  knowledge  upon  the  postulate  of  the 
infinite.  After  individuals  or  societies  have  passed  a  certain 
stage  of  intellectual  development,  however,  there  occurs  an 
irrevocable  transposition  of  the  infinite  in  their  scheme  of 
thought.  The  function  of  the  infinite  can  no  longer  be  either 
to  reveal  or  to  manipulate  finite  relations.  It  is  henceforward 
to  magnify  the  value  of  those  relations.  The  real  agnosticism 
is  assumption  that  finite  experiences  have  merely  finite  values. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 

CATEGORICAL   AND   TELIC   VALUATIONS    CONTRASTED    IN 
THE  CASE  OF  TEMPERANCE 

The  brief  of  our  argument  for  the  relation  of  the  process- 
conception  of  Hfe  to  determination  of  moral  values  may  be 
regarded  as  complete  at  this  point.  We  add  a  single  illustra- 
tion of  its  bearings  in  a  concrete  case. 

The  system  of  telic  ethics  which  the  process-conception  of 
life  involves  might  with  propriety  be  described  as  a  new  sanc- 
tion for  old  virtues.  Many  cardinal  obligations  which  have 
been  inculcated,  time  out  of  mind,  by  moral  teachers,  have  been 
predicated  by  tradition  upon  grounds  which  cannot  be  main- 
tained, but  they  are  reaffirmed  by  analysis  of  life  as  a  process 
of  adaptation.  In  the  social  pedagogy  of  the  past,  supersti- 
tious, arbitrary,  fraudulent,  or  stupidly  conventional  reasons 
often  became  the  sanctions  relied  upon  to  enforce  virtue. 
Conduct  good  in  its  place  has  notoriously  been  insisted  upon  as 
good  in  itself,  regardless  of  its  place.  Types  of  conduct  have 
thus  come  to  be  regarded  as  ends  in  themselves,  whereas  their 
real  worth  consisted  in  their  service  as  means  to  some  sort 
of  human  attainment.  That  service  performed,  or  no  longer 
required  in  the  same  sense  or  degree,  the  tributary  conduct 
in  reality  loses  its  former  ratio  of  value.  Conduct  is  good  for 
what  it  can  accomplish.  Given  types  of  conduct  have  differ- 
ent values,  therefore,  according  to  the  circumstances  under 
which  they  are  performed. 

A  single  illustration  will  serve  the  purposes  of  the  present 
argument.  Let  us  take  the  relations  that  have  been  general- 
ized in  the  term  "temperance."  Let  us  consider,  as  exclu- 
sively as  possiblCj  merely  the  individual  aspect  of  the  rela- 
tions concerned,  or  rather  simply  the  health  element  in  the 
individual  fraction  of  conduct-relations.  It  would  be  incon- 
sistent with  our  whole  analysis  if  we  should  assume  that  a 

697 


698  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

complete  statement  is  possible  when  attention  is  confined  to 
such  a  minute  abstraction.  We  are  not  proposing  a  formula 
of  conduct,  but  merely  illustrating,  in  the  case  of  one  part  of 
a  problem,  the  form  of  judgment  by  which  a  valid  formula  is 
to  be  derived.  Our  illustration  should  be  compared  with 
Spencer's  chapter  on   "Temperance."^ 

//  life  is  regarded  as  a  process  of  suiting  means  to  ends,  it 
becomes  axiomatic  that  invariable  abstinence  froni  anything 
that  has  value  as  a  means  is  not  temperance,  but  intemperance. 

As  we  have  observed  above,^  the  agreeable  sensations  that 
accompany  the  exercise  of  a  function  of  the  body  are  parts 
of  the  economy  of  the  life-process.  Satisfaction  incidental  to 
eating  and  drinking  is  a  factor  in  the  order  of  nature  that 
insures  well-fed  and  well-toned  bodies.  The  most  intimate 
question  concerned  when  we  ask  whether  our  dinner  shall 
include  caviar,  and  terrapin,  and  pate  de  foie  gras,  and  cham- 
pagne, is  (the  cost  item  being  disregarded  in  our  illustration)  : 
Will  these  things  build  up  our  bodies?  Assuming  that  an 
article  of  food  or  drink  has  nutritive  value,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, the  questions  primarily  concerned  are,  first,  as  to  the 
relative  food-value  of  this  and  other  material,  and,  second, 
as  to  the  quantity  of  the  material  in  question  that  will  best 
promote  the  vital  processes.  What  we  shall  eat  and  drink,  and 
how  much  of  it,  is  primarily  a  question  of  physiology.  If  arse- 
nic is  the  substance  that  my  body  needs  at  the  present  moment, 
it  is  good  for  me  to  swallow  arsenic.  If  there  are  any  pleas- 
urable sensations  connected  with  consumption  of  arsenic  under 
those  conditions,  I  should  enjoy  them  to  the  limit,  and  thank 
God  for  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  every  pain  is  a  sign  of  some  disorder 
of  bodily  function,  so  every  pleasure  is  a  solicitation  to  excess 
that  forthwith  becomes  disorder.     The  virtue  of  temperance 

^Principles  of  Ethics,  Part  II,  chap.  12.  The  contrast  between  this  argu- 
ment and  that  of  Spencer  is  not  evident  until  we  reach  problems  of  social 
ethics.     It  is  then  easy  to  show  radical  differences. 

^Pp.  447.  448. 


CATEGORICAL  AND  TELIC  VALUATIONS  699 

is  indicated,  not  in  the  merits  of  abstinence,  but  in  the  demerits 
of  overindulgence.  Asceticism  is  to  morals  what  the  old  prac- 
tice of  bleeding  was  to  hygiene.  As  an  exceptional  resort  it 
has  its  uses.     As  a  rule  it  is  deadening. 

Accordingly,  any  formula  of  temperance  which  tests  the 
use  of  beer  or  wine  or  rum  by  any  principle  not  equally  appli- 
cable to  tea  or  coffee  or  milk  or  ice-water  is  unenlightened  and 
indefensible.  As  a  matter  of  pure  individual  ethics,  and  spe- 
cifically as  a  matter  of  purely  health  ethics,  the  bad  thing  for 
me  to  do  at  this  moment  might  be  to  swallow  a  glass  of  milk, 
while  the  good  thing  for  me  to  do  might  be  to  swallow  a  glass 
of  whiskey. 

We  must  emphasize  the  caution  that  our  argument  is  not 
to  be  understood  as  in  any  sense  a  plea  for  or  against  the  use 
or  disuse  of  either  milk  or  whiskey.  We  are  arguing  for  a 
method  of  arriving  at  decisions  about  principles  of  use  and 
disuse,  in  accordance  with  the  process-conception  of  life. 

There  may  be  occasions  when  the  best  conduct  discoverable 
is  use  of  alcohol,  or  arsenic,  or  morphine,  or  chloral.  It  is 
temperance,  physiologically  measured,  to  use  the  means  at  a 
given  time  demanded  by  the  real  interests  of  the  body.  An 
ethical  code  that  grants  plenary  indulgence  for  use  of  ice- 
water,  and  decrees  absolute  excommunication  of  alcohol,  is 
as  superstitious  at  one  extreme  as  at  the  other.  The  use  of 
either  means  is  a  question  of  circumstances. 

After  I  have  swallowed  a  glass  of  wine,  I  shal]  have  occa- 
sion to  show  more  moral  strength  than  after  I  swallow  a  glass 
of  milk.  The  evil  of  drinking  wane  might  be  less  than  the 
good,  in  a  given  instance,  if  it  were  not  for  the  difficulty  of 
satisfying  this  after-condition.  The  wine,  even  used  when  it 
is  good,  may  stimulate  cravings  for  more  wine  when  it  is  bad. 
After  once  drinking  the  wine,  I  have  need  to  be  morally 
stronger  than  before  to  restrain  myself  from  indulgence  in 
wine  when  abstinence  is  the  adjustment  that  my  life-process 
demands.  This,  however,  is  merely  a  look  into  the  larger 
relations  of  a  problem  of  which  we  are  considering  merely  a 


700  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

primary  factor.  Our  argument  is  that  the  process-conception 
of  Hfe  requires  consideration  of  each  of  the  factors  in  turn, 
and  of  all  of  them  combined,  in  accordance  with  the  same  telic 
principle.  Illustrating  the  logic  and  the  ethics  of  all  conduct 
by  this  physiological  abstraction,  we  have  the  elementary  prin- 
ciple of  temperance,  viz. :  What  and  hoiv  much  we  shall  eat 
and  drink  is,  in  the  first  instance,  a  problem  of  physical  ways 
and  means,  like  questions  of  the  zveight  and  quality  of  under- 
clothes, or  the  thickness  of  sole-leather. 

In  short,  all  moral  questions  are  questions  of  uses,  not  of 
conformity  to  categories.  No  element  of  conduct  is  good  or 
bad  in  itself.  It  is  only  when  choices  are  seen  in  relations, 
when  they  appear  as  factors  of  the  whole  in  which  they 
react,  when  they  are  considered  in  their  functioning  processes, 
that  an  intelligent  judgment  of  their  goodness  or  badness  is 
possible.  Throughout  the  whole  range  of  moral  relations, 
from  most  narrowly  individual  to  most  generally  social,  valua- 
tions of  conduct  are  conclusive  in  the  degree  in  which  they 
represent  a  valid  calculus  of  uses  throughout  the  whole  social 
process. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  categorical  philosophies,  this 
whole  conception  of  social  logic  seems  negative  and  destruc- 
tive. It  is  accused  of  weakening  the  demands  of  morality  and 
of  encouraging  license.  This  is  undoubtedly  the  effect  upon 
certain  types  of  mind,  when  they  are  emancipated  from  the 
control  of  arbitrary  authority.  Yet  it  is  a  confession  of 
unfaith  in  the  constitution  of  the  world  to  insist,  for  pruden- 
tial reasons,  upon  fictitious  versions  of  moral  order  in  place 
of  real  analysis  of  the  human  process. 

Strong  precepts  must  prove  to  be  weak  in  the  end  if  their 
support  is  an  unsound  philosophy.  Analysis  of  the  life-process 
does  not  discover  that  gluttony  is  good,  nor  that  drunkenness 
is  right.  It  does  not  advertise  that  it  is  good  to  take  risks 
with  our  appetites.  It  distinguishes,  however,  between  ele- 
ments of  conduct  that  are  frcf|uently  found  together,  and 
between  effects  of  the  same  conduct  in  drfferent  times  and 


CATEGORICAL  AND  TELIC  VALUATIONS  701 

places.  It  does  not  vacate  any  valid  precept  against  intem- 
perance.    It  vindicates  all  the  virtues  of  temperance. 

Taboo  is  a  law  of  man,  not  of  nature.  Temperance  is 
not  taboo.  Temperance  is  use  regulated  by  occasions.  Tem- 
perance is  not  a  state  of  mind  which  consists  in  maintaining 
a  rogues'  gallery  of  things  mala  per  se.  Temperance  is 
steady  perception  that  "all  things  are  lawful,  but  all  things 
are  not  expedient,"  and  it  is  customary  use  of  things  in  the 
ratio  of  their  expediency. 

The  fact  that  the  practical  program  indicated  by  the  expe- 
diences of  eating  and  drinking  must  be  merely  an  item  in  the 
whole  schedule  of  individual  and  social  good,  makes  our  use 
of  temperance,  for  illustrative  purposes,  merely  a  fragment. 
As  we  pointed  out  in  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  we  are 
purposely  dealing  with  the  simplest  possible  abstractions,  in 
order  to  explain  the  method  of  judgment  which  the  process- 
conception  of  life  requires  throughout  the  whole  range  of 
moral  relations.  When  we  pass  from  consideration  of  eating 
and  drinking  in  the  abstract,  to  the  specific  problem  of  the  duty 
of  the  individual  A.  B.  as  a  social  factor,  the  whole  range  of 
social  cause  and  effect  to  which  St.  Paul  referred,  in  his  pro- 
gram concerning  meat  offered  to  idols,  at  once  requires  pro- 
portionate consideration.  The  problem  of  community  of 
action  with  reference  to  liberty  of  eating  and  drinking  and 
catering  is  likewise  a  problem,  not  merely  of  public  hygiene, 
but  of  public  morals.  Nevertheless,  this  larger  view  of 
conduct-relations  does  not  affect  the  principle  which  we  have 
illustrated.  In  any  case,  from  least  to  greatest,  the  process- 
conception  of  life  calls  for  appraisal  of  all  conduct  by  the 
standard  of  its  uses  in  the  widest  ranges  of  the  process  in 
which  its  consequences  can  be  traced. 

With  the  illustration  before  us,  we  may  repeat  that  the 
process-conception  of  life  contains  the  only  credible  promise 
in  sight  of  sanctioning  an  ethical  method  which  the  general 
judgment  of  men  must  accept. 

In  a  word,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  process-conception 


702  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

of  life,  every  moral  act,  from  the  most  individual  to  the  most 
social,  is  to  be  valued  according  to  its  positive  or  negative 
share  in  an  inclusive  program  of  organizing  mediate  ends  for 
co-operative  promotion  of  more  ultimate  individual  and  social 
ends.  All  conduct  intelligently  appraisable  as  good,  from 
sleeping  and  ivaking  and  eating  and  thinking  and  speaking, 
to  legislating  and  warring  and  treaty-making,  is  conduct 
which  so  adapts  means  to  ends  that  the  net  result  is  a  gain 
in  the  total  realization  of  life. 


PART   IX 

THE   SOCIAL   PROCESS   CONSIDERED   AS   A   SYSTEM   OF 
TECHNICAL  PROBLEMS 


CHAPTER  XLIX 
THE  PREMISES  OF  PRACTICAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Henderson,  "  The  Scope  of  Social  Technology,"  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  Vol.  VI,  p.  465. 

Idem,  "  Practical  Sociology  in  Service  of  Social  Ethics,"  Decennial 
Publications  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  Vol.  III. 

The  process-conception  of  life,  which  our  argument  has 
developed,  necessarily  passes,  sooner  or  later,  from  the  char- 
acter of  abstract  theory  into  that  of  a  constructive  policy. 
It  tries  to  bring  into  view,  and  to  explain,  all  the  sorts  of  facts 
that  take  place  in  men's  lives,  in  such  a  way  that  they  will  tell 
the  most  about  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it,  here  and  now. 

In  spite  of  something  like  chaos  among  the  sociologists, 
so  far  as  apparent  consensus  about  abstract  theory  is  con- 
cerned, the  time  is  at  hand  for  atttempts  to  bring  pure  soci- 
ology to  application.  At  least,  it  is  safe  and  desirable  to 
begin  to  mark  out  the  procedure  which  will  become  more  and 
more  precise  and  profitable  as  sociology  matures. 

Sociology  has  passed  through  two  stages  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century  :  ( i )  A  stage  of  dilettantism, 
both  in  theory  and  in  practice.  This  stage  was  prolific  of 
fanciful  social  philosophies  and  of  Utopian  schemes  of  social 
improvement.  (2)  A  stage  of  criticism.  It  is  impossible  to 
draw  precise  boundaries  between  the.se  stages.  Indeed,  the 
two  phases  of  development  have  overlapped  in  the  same  per- 
sons. When  Herbert  Spencer  wrote  his  Social  Statics,  for 
example,  he  was  dominated  by  the  former  impulse.  Although 
he  never  entirely  shook  ofif  the  traditions  of  that  stage  of  think- 
ing, he  was  of  course  eminent  in  promoting  critical  study  of 
society. 

It  would  be  a  task  for  the  historian  of  sociology  to  assign 
due  credit  for  the  later  attitude  of  the  sociologists.  We  need 
not  stop  for  that.     The  point  is  that,  under  the  influence  of 

705 


7o6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

the  critical  spirit,  the  reaction  against  sociological  sentimental- 
ism  has  well-nigh  paralyzed  the  progressive  and  constructive 
impulses  which  did  credit  to  the  zeal,  if  not  the  discretion,  of 
the  older  doctrinaires  and  agitators.  The  latter  felt  a  "  woe 
is  me  "  if  they  did  not  act  for  the  immediate  benefit  of  society. 
The  later  critical  sociologists  successfully  discouraged  the 
active  impulse.  In  some  cases  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  the 
impulse  existed.  They  held  that  we  must  know  the  facts 
about  society  before  we  can  reconstruct  society  by  artificial 
means.  Some  of  them  even  asserted  that  there  could  be  no 
reconstruction  at  all.  They  accordingly  worked  without 
much  organization,  but  with  a  division  of  labor  which  has 
pretty  closely  covered  the  ground,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  co-operation  was  accidental  and  unconscious. 

Taking  the  results  of  all  the  critical  sociologists  together, 
we  nevertheless  have  fairly  good  preliminary  surveys  of  all 
the  activities  of  society.  These  are  sufficient  guides  to  justify 
resumption  of  attempts  to  look  ahead.  That  is,  we  have  not 
reached  any  conclusions  which  have  much  value  as  premises 
for  social  dogmas,  but  we  have  some  pretty  distinct  outline 
maps  of  social  activities  in  all  their  stages  and  correlations. 
We  have  no  formulas  that  are  worth  anything  for  quantitative 
measurement  of  social  influences,  past,  present,  or  future ;  but 
we  have  such  means  of  qualitative  social  analysis  that  we  may 
feel  fairly  well  acquainted  with  society  in  principle,  while  we 
lack  knowledge  of  less  general  details. 

This  abstract  and  general  knowledge,  moreover,  with  much 
knowledge  of  details  that  may  safely  be  taken  as  guides  in 
further  experiment,  is  at  our  disposal  for  practical  work.  If 
it  is  valid  science,  it  forms  a  secure  basis,  so  far  as  it  goes,  for 
progress  such  as  the  early  sentimentalists  desired.  If  our 
present  sociological  knowledge  is  of  a  kind  capable  of  sup- 
porting more  practical  activities,  there  is  also  enough  of  it 
to  give  those  activities  strong  impulse. 

In  other  words,  the  sociologists  have  served  a  sufficiently 
long  apprenticeship  in  pure  science,  or  in  attempts  to  perfect 


THE  PREMISES  OF  PRACTICAL  SOCIOLOGY  707 

the  methodology  of  pure  science,  to  acquit  them  of  the  charge 
of  sentimentaHsm  when  they  attempt  to  calculate  the  lines  of 
action  which  the  conduct  of  society  ought  to  take. 

As  I  have  argued  at  length  in  Part  VIII,  the  latest  word 
of  sociology  is  with  reference  to  the  end  which  gives  to  social 
activities  their  meaning.  After  all  our  analysis  of  the  origin 
and  evolution  and  mechanism  of  the  social  process,  we  are 
conscious  that  the  final  use  of  the  whole  complex  procedure  is 
what  it  can  avail  us  in  estimating  the  values  of  different 
activities.  We  have  concluded  that  the  whole  social  process, 
so  far  as  we  can  anticipate  it,  is  comprehended  in  the  formula 
derived  from  survey  of  all  of  the  process  which  we  can 
observe ;  viz. :  The  social  process  is  continuous  advance  in 
the  development,  adjustment,  and  satisfaction  of  the  health, 
zvealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  beauty,  and  rightness  desires. 
Those  activities  are  good  which  promote  this  process,  and 
those  are  bad  that  retard  it.  Virtually  the  same  thought  is 
expressed  by  Professor  Ludwig  Stein,  of  Bern,  in  these  words; 

The  veil  is  gradually  lifting  from  the  meaning  of  history.  That  mean- 
ing is  and  can  be  nothing  else  than  progressive  ennobling  of  the  human 
type,  the  upbuilding  of  the  human  species  into  social  persons,  the  final  sub- 
jugation of  the  bete  huntaine  through  social  institutions  in  the  realms  of 
law  and  custom,  of  religion  and  morality,  of  art  and  science.' 

With  the  same  emphasis  that  Stein  places,  throughout  his 
argument,  on  the  element  of  organization  and  co-operation 
among  men,  as  a  factor  of  progress  equally  essential  with 
improvement  of  the  individual  type,  I  accept  this  description 
as  an  expansion  of  mine. 

Of  course,  I  cannot  claim  that  these  propositions  com- 
mand general  assent  among  the  sociologists,  any  more  than 
elsewhere.  They  are  the  result  of  a  long  course  of  construct- 
ive analysis,  which  is  the  best  that  I  have  been  able  to  do 
toward  getting  at  the  final  criterion  of  life.  I  am  bound  to 
use  it,  therefore,  till  clearer  light  appears.  I  cite  it  now,  not 
for  the  purpose  of  further  defending  it,  but  in  order  to  show 
its  bearings   upon   programs  of  social   action. 

^  An   der   Wende   des  Jahrhunderts,  p.   414. 


7o8  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

Assuming,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  our  conclusions 
thus  far  are  unchallenged,  I  see  only  one  radical  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  a  positive  principle  of  social  guidance.  It  is  this : 
We  have  not  proved  that  the  operation  of  this  process  must 
extend  to  any  definite  proportion  of  the  human  race.  It  is 
possible  to  contend,  somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  Aristotle,  that 
the  conditions  of  life  do  not  permit  many  of  us  to  have  much 
share  in  the  higher  ranges  of  the  social  process,  and  that  our 
social  program  must  necessarily  contemplate,  as  the  working 
end,  the  increasing  satisfactions  of  the  few,  while  the  many 
must  always  furnish  the  means  by  which  the  few  realize  the 
increased  quantity  and  quality  of  satisfaction.  It  is  indeed 
claimed  that  modern  science,  and  especially  the  mass  of  evi- 
dence from  which  evolutionary  generalizations  are  reached, 
distinctly  reinforces  Aristotle's  opinion.  We  find  that  nature 
perfects  a  few  of  the  lower  types,  by  wasting  millions  of  unfor- 
tunate specimens  of  the  type.  Is  it  not  probable  that  human 
myriads  must  always  be  miserable  in  order  that  a  few  may 
progress?  Is  not  a  social  program  indicated  by  the  facts  of 
life  which  contemplates  the  greater  good  of  the  few  at  the 
expense  of  the  many? 

It  would  be  pure  pretense  to  claim  that  we  have  a  con- 
clusive scientific  refutation  of  the  views  implied  in  these  ques- 
tions. There  is  no  visible  demonstration  that  the  social  process 
in  which  we  are  included  does  not  converge  upon  excellences 
in  a  few  at  the  cost  of  the  rest.  That  is,  the  philosophy  of 
Nietzsche,  for  example,  and  the  working  policy  of  the  unsocial 
fraction  of  society  that  would  monojx)lize  opportunity  so  long 
as  there  is  anything  left  for  the  unsocial  individual  to  desire, 
cannot  be  absolutely  proved  to  lack  sanction  in  the  laws  of 
nature. 

Nevertheless,  if  we  hold  that  the  social  process  involves 
progressive  satisfaction  of  all  the  interests,  and  not  merely 
of  some  of  them,  we  are  obliged  to  infer  that  the  process  must 
include  enough  people  to  satisfy  the  conditions  of  its  own 
operation.     That  is^  if  we  find  that  the  social  process,  as  we 


THE  PREMISES  OF  PRACTICAL  SOCIOLOGY  709 

know  it,  indicates  continuance  of  higher  powers  of  health, 
weahh,  sociabiHty,  knowledge,  beauty,  and  Tightness  satis- 
faction for  so^nebody,  we  are  bound  to  conclude  that  the  popu- 
lation concerned  in  that  process  must  be  great  enough  to  main- 
tain the  complicated  activities  upon  which  these  enlarged  sat- 
isfactions depend.  Accepting  5  per  cent,  of  the  population  of 
the  United  States  as  a  liberal  estimate  of  the  class  which  we 
call  the  unemployed,  it  might  be  possible  to  make  a  plausible 
argument  to  the  effect  that  these  5  per  cent,  of  our  population 
have  no  claim  to  an  equity  in  the  social  process.^  "  There  is 
no  use  for  them.  They  ought  not  to  have  been  born.  No 
theory  of  life  can  find  a  rightful  place  for  such  a  social 
surplus." 

Without  attempting  to  construct  a  brief  for  the  benefit  of 
this  5  per  cent.,  the  only  reply  necessary  seems  to  be  that  this 
is  really  a  negligible  quantity.  The  life-process,  as  we  under- 
stand it,  requires,  at  any  rate,  the  other  95  per  cent.  In 
order  that  any  of  us  may  get  on  in  the  higher  developments 
of  our  interests,  whether  the  essential  material  interests,  or 
the  derived  spiritual  interests,  all  this  mass  of  people  is  neces- 
sary. The  requisite  division  of  labor  and  variety  of  situation 
are  not  otherwise  possible.  There  must  be  so  many  hundred 
farmers  and  artisans  in  order  that  there  may  be  one  scholar 
and  artist  and  moral  leader.  And  there  must  be  so  many  more 
farmers  and  artisans  in  order  that  scholarship  and  art  and 
moral  leadership  may  ascend  to  higher  planes.  The  social 
process  is  not  carried  on  by  the  few  only  who  may  be  called 
the  pinnacles  of  society.  It  is  carried  on  by  all  who  maintain 
the  conditions  upon  which  the  pinnacles  rest.  It  may  be  that 
too  many  people  are  born  in  a  given  part  of  the  world,  and 
that  diminution  of  the  birth-rate  becomes  to  that  extent  a 
part  of  the  social  problem.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  5  per 
cent,  which  we  have  just  conceded,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 

'  This  is  merely  a  guess  at  the  number  of  unemployable  plus  the  average 
number  of  employable  out  of  work.  The  force  of  the  argument  does  not 
depend  on  the  accuracy  of  the  guess. 


710  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

may  represent  an  excessive  accession-rate  in  the  United  States. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  also  be  that  organization  of  Hfe 
in  accordance  with  the  best  that  we  know  would  absorb  that 
5  per  cent,  and  create  a  demand  for  more  sharers  in  the  social 
process.  It  may  be  that  the  existence  of  the  5  per  cent,  is 
an  index  of  abnormality  in  our  social  arrangements,  or  of 
invincible  perversity  in  individuals,  which  much  be  charged 
to  profit  and  loss. 

Not  pressing  this  point,  however,  no  way  is  visible  by 
which  any  portion  of  the  95  per  cent,  of  our  social  population 
can  advance  toward  all-around  satisfaction  without  needing 
each  other  in  the  process.  If  the  process  needs  all  the  persons, 
each  of  the  persons  must  be  entitled  to  a  share  in  the  process. 

Practically  the  same  thing  might  be  stated  in  this  way : 
The  type  of  life  that  civilization  has  developed  calls  for  a 
type  of  persons  capable  of  the  most  intensely  refined  and 
many-sided  co-operation.  Ability  to  lit  into  an  infinitely 
refined  and  complex  system  of  co-operation  is  the  mark  of 
fitness  for  the  present  social  environment.  At  the  same  time 
democracy  has  given  to  the  individual  both  demand  and 
capacity  for  a  share  in  consumption  of  all  the  achievements  of 
civilization.  Unless  this  demand  is  measurably  satisfied,  the 
fitness  of  the  individual  for  his  part  in  co-operation  is  reduced 
toward  the  point  of  obstruction.  That  is :  On  the  most 
cynical  basis  of  calculation  which  could  be  adopted,  the  pro- 
gram of  civilization  is  a  system  of  inevitable  co-operation.  If 
control  of  the  co-operation  were  in  the  hands  of  one  despot, 
he  would  be  obliged,  in  order  to  keep  the  system  from  break- 
ing down,  to  run  it  in  the  interest  of  all  the  persons  necessary 
for  the  co-operation.  To  do  this,  he  would  be  obliged  to  run  it 
on  a  plan  which  would  admit  all  the  persons  necessary  to  the 
co-operation  to  progressive  participation  in  all  the  advantages 
of  the  co-operation.  The  reason  for  this  is  in  the  fact  that 
they  are  persons,  not  things. 

This  conclusion  is  no  more  demonstrative  than  its  oppo- 
site, but  it  is  more  probable,  more  morally  convincing.     The 


1 


THE  PREMISES  OF  PRACTICAL  SOCIOLOGY  711 

plausibility  of  the  special-privilege  hypothesis  grows  out  of 
failure  to  remember  the  facts  which  make  the  exceptional  indi- 
viduals possible.  Without  social  partnership  no  man  could 
improve  himself  enough  to  exhibit  any  marked  difference 
from  other  men.  The  more  extensive  the  social  partnership, 
the  greater  the  possibility  of  making  particular  talents  dis- 
tinguish their  possessors  from  others.  But  that  distinction 
comes  from  co-operation,  and  the  co-operators  are  at  least 
entitled  to  such  terms  of  co-operation  that  each  may  move 
forward  in  the  general  direction  which  the  whole  social  process 
pursues. 

This  means  that,  with  such  conceptions  of  justice  as  we 
now  hold,  with  our  present  concepts  also  of  human  individuals, 
there  can  be  no  tolerable  program  of  life  which  does  not  admit 
practically  all  persons  to  the  franchise  of  all  the  interests 
represented  by  any  person. 

The  problem,  then,  which  general  sociology  reaches  at  last 
is  this,  to  put  it  in  the  concrete :  In  the  actual  present  situa- 
tion of  the  American  people,  for  instance,  what  general  pur- 
poses and  ivhai  special  programs  are  necessary,  in  order  to 
satisfy  the  conditions  of  that  stage  of  the  process  in  zvhich  we 
find  ourselves?  As  we  have  seen,  the  indicated  end  of  the 
process  is  ynore  of  the  process,  i.  e.,  more  intensive  and  exten- 
sive satisfaction  of  all  the  interests;  and  the  condition  wdiich 
we  have  just  discussed  is  that  all  the  individuals  sharing  in 
the  mechanism  of  the  process  shall  share  in  the  benefits  of  the 
process  in  proportion  to  their  contribution  to  the  process.  In 
other  words,  normal  continuance  of  the  social  process  requires 
that  each  person  sharing  in  the  process  shall  be  secure  in 
opportunity  to  get  on,  in  realisation  of  each  of  the  interests  to 
zvhich  the  process  contributes;  or  to  make  gains  toward  a 
more  harmonious  balance  of  the  desires  satisfied. 

But  we  must  now  turn  back  upon  the  track  of  our  argu- 
ment far  enough  to  recognize  that  we  have  jumped  over  a 
very  wide  chasm  in  our  survey  of  social  activities.  Before 
we  can  have  a  standard  of  action  appropriate  to  the  actual 


712  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

social  situation,  we  must  have  a  thoroughly  adequate  analysis 
of  the  situation.  The  most  serious  and  the  most  astonishing 
omission  thus  far  in  sociological  theory  is  the  failure  to  carry 
out  the  work  of  generalizing  sociological  notions  far  enough 
to  furnish  the  schedules  necessary  for  working  knowledge  of 
the  actual  situation.  The  things  that  are  worth  doing  are  the 
things  that  will  promote  the  social  process ;  but  to  know  what 
those  things  are  we  must  know  accurately  the  situation  at 
which  the  process  has  arrived. 

A  homely  analogy  may  illustrate  the  point.  Everybody 
knows  in  general  the  science  of  running  a  steam  engine.  There 
must  first  be  the  properly  constructed  engine  itself;  it  must 
have  a  supply  of  water  in  the  boiler;  a  supply  of  fuel  in  the 
fire-box;  that  fuel  must  be  so  consumed  as  to  make  steam; 
the  steam  must  be  let  into  the  cylinders  in  volume  enough  to 
exert  the  pressure  necessary  for  the  work  which  the  machinery 
must  do.  So  far  the  program  is  plain.  These  are  general 
principles  of  mechanical  wisdom.  But  what  is  scientific  for 
Engineer  John  Smith  at  this  moment  in  handling  his  engine? 
Shall  he  order  more  fuel  into  the  fire-box,  or  more  water  into 
the  boiler,  or  more  steam  into  the  cylinders?  These  things 
depend  entirely  upon  the  situation  at  this  moment.  If  more 
power  is  needed,  and  the  boiler  can  generate  more  steam,  and 
the  driving-gear  has  been  working  below  its  capacity,  then 
it  is  scientific  to  pile  in  the  fuel  as  fast  as  forced  draft  can  con- 
sume it,  to  turn  on  water  to  keep  it  at  the  most  economical 
steaming  level,  and  to  crowd  pressure  on  the  cylinders  as  fast 
as  it  can  be  produced.  But  if  the  water  has  fallen  below  the 
safety  level,  if  the  pipes  are  overheated,  if  more  water  would 
be  likely  to  crack  them,  then  the  scientific  thing  may  be  to 
exhaust  the  steam  left  in  the  pipes,  dump  the  fire  altogether, 
cool  the  boiler  to  a  temperature  at  which  cold  water  is  safe, 
then  fill  the  boiler,  rekindle  the  fire,  watch  the  steam  gauge, 
and  wait  for  orders. 

Now,  the  goal  of  sociological  method  may  be  described  as 
such  insight  into  the  precise  situation,  at  one's  own  moment 


THE  PREMISES  OF  PRACTICAL  SOCIOLOGY  713 

of  sharing  in  the  social  process,  that  one  may  be  able  to  decide, 
just  as  the  well-posted  engineer  in  the  supposed  case  would  do, 
what  is  the  right  line  of  action.  The  desideratum  is  to  be 
able  to  say,  for  instance:  The  American  people  are  in  such 
and  such  a  situation;  such  and  such  are  the  chief  issues  nozv 
pending;  the  other  issues  fall  into  such  and  such  subordinate 
relations;  in  vieiv  of  these  facts,  the  conduct  of  the  American 
people  should  be  turned  in  such  and  such  directions,  so  as 
to  procure  such  and  such  residts.  An  adaptation  of  the  same 
formula  must  express  the  real  problem  in  any  minor  portion  of 
the  social  situation. 

This  is  by  no  means  such  an  academic  and  Utopian  con- 
ception as  it  may  seem.  It  is  simply  a  somewhat  more  gen- 
eralized expression  of  the  thing  that  men  of  affairs,  no  less 
than  philosophers,  have  been  doing,  in  a  way,  time  out  of 
mind.  Not  to  go  back  beyond  our  own  national  traditions, 
the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  did  precisely 
this.  After  years  of  increasing  tension,  the  situation  of  the 
colonies  had  become  more  and  more  intolerable.  The  colo- 
nists at  large,  and  particularly  their  representatives  in  the 
Continental  Congress,  had  studied  the  situation,  so  far  as 
they  were  able,  in  all  its  bearings.  They  tried  to  take  into 
account  everything  that  concerned  their  welfare  in  the  largest 
sense.  Whether  they  were  correct  or  not  is  beside  the  point 
now  in  question.  The  simple  fact  is  that  they  made  up  their 
minds  about  the  demands  of  the  situation  and  formulated  a 
program  accordingly.  They  first  said  that  the  thing  for 
America  to  do  was  to  resist  oppression.  When  that  was  not 
enough,  they  said  the  only  thing  left  for  America  is  to  win 
its  independence  from  Great  Britain.  All  things  else  must 
yield  to  that.  They  accordingly  adopted  a  program  that  con- 
trolled them  for  the  following  seven  years. 

Meanwhile  another  situation,  demanding  another  survey 
and  another  program,  gradually  superseded  the  one  to  which 
that  program  was  appropriate.  Independence  became  prob- 
able, and  at  last  actual.     But  before  it  was  reached,  and  still 


714  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

more  after  it  had  been  recognized,  independence  in  a  new 
sense  became  almost  as  great  a  problem  as  the  former  tyranny 
of  Great  Britain.  Each  colony  wanted  to  be  independent  of 
all  the  rest.  This  fact  jeopardized  all  that  had  been  gained 
by  the  Revolution.  The  process  of  comprehending  the  situa- 
tion had  to  be  performed  over  again.  A  new  program  had 
to  be  decided  ujx^n.  The  Constitutional  Convention  again 
represented  the  whole  people  in  attempting  to  estimate  all  the 
factors  of  the  general  welfare  which  required  attention,  in 
order  rightly  to  decide  upon  lines  of  action.  The  draft  of 
the  Constitution  was  the  resultant  of  this  survey  and  calcula- 
tion. To  be  sure,  the  governmental  element  of  welfare  was 
almost  exclusively  considered,  but  that  was  the  factor  which 
seemed  at  the  time  decisive.  The  subsequent  campaign  in  the 
several  states,  for  ratification  of  the  Constitution,  was  another 
stage  of  the  same  process  of  group-attention  to  the  situation, 
and  the  final  adoption  of  the  Constitution  completed  the 
acceptance  of  a  standard  of  social  action.^ 

Every  four  years  since  that  time  two  or  more  political 
parties  have  more  or  less  thoroughly,  more  or  less  conscien- 
tiously, repeated  the  same  process.  If  we  wish  to  be  cynical, 
we  may  say  that  the  real  process  is  that  of  opposing  politicians 
saying  to  themselves,  "We  want  the  offices,"  and  then  casting 
about  for  the  kind  of  promises  most  likely  to  get  votes.  Even 
if  reduced  to  this  moral  minimum,  the  process  of  a  political 
campaign  involves  a  serious  study  of  the  social  situation  and 
its  chief  needs.  The  results  have  been  summed  up  in  the 
party  platforms  with  which  as  their  credentials  candidates 
have  appealed  to  the  country.  The  most  conscienceless  poli- 
tician that  ever  helped  to  frame  a  party  policy  did  form  an 
estimate,  after  its  kind,  of  the  situation  to  which  the  policy 
must  apply.  Whether  the  process  is  performed  with  intelli- 
gence and  public  spirit,  or  in  ignorance  and  selfishness,  does 
not  affect  the  main  point.  In  some  fashion  or  other,  the  most 
practical  men  are  performing  the  process   incessantly.     The 

'  Cf.  use  of  the  same  period  to  illustrate  other  relations,  pp.  245  et  passim. 


THE  PREMISES  OF  PRACTICAL  SOCIOLOGY  715 

masses  are  accepting  the  results,  such  as  they  are,  of  these 
estimates  of  the  situation. 

Now,  the  essential  sociological  problem  in  this  connection 
is :  What  ought  zve  to  consider,  and  zvhat  means  will  enable 
lis  to  consider  it,  in  order  to  do  with  the  utmost  possible  wis- 
dom and  justice  zvhat  is  being  done  less  wisely  and'  less  justly 
every  day? 

We  have  had  to  confront  repeatedly  and  in  turn,  in  the 
century  and  a  quarter  of  our  national  existence,  situations 
which  enforced  the  question :  Shall  we  adopt  a  program  of 
localism  or  of  nationalism,  of  militarism  or  of  commercialism ; 
of  national  isolation  or  of  international  alliances;  of  protec- 
tion or  of  free  trade ;  of  emphasis  upon  industry,  or  politics, 
or  public  improvements,  or  education,  or  morals,  or  religion, 
or  territorial  expansion  ?  We  have  faced  these  questions  with 
such  wisdom  as  we  had.  The  function  of  sociology  is  to  assist 
in  making  our  methods  of  approaching  such  questions  more 
nearly  adequate  to  this  task  which  incessantly  recurs. 

We  confront  today  in  the  United  States  the  most  prodi- 
gious technical  problems  which  any  people  ever  had  to  solve, 
—  i.  e.,  in  the  largest  sense  of  the  term  "technical"'* — and 
almost  everybody  is  so  impressed  with  the  importance,  to  him- 
self or  others,  of  one  or  more  of  these  technical  questions,  that 
few  are  left  to  know  or  care  that  each  and  all  of  them  are 
phases  of  a  complex  situation.  Few  of  us  see  that  the  impor- 
tance of  the  technical  results,  and  even  the  possibility  of  getting 
results,  depends  in  a  considerable  degree  upon  correct  percep- 
tions, or  at  least  instincts,  of  the  relation  of  these  details  to 
the  whole  situation  within  which  they  must  be  adjusted.  In 
order  to  insure  broader  outlook  and  more  steady  vision,  we 
need  to  work  upon  general  surveys  of  the  situation,  and  to 
chart  their  significant  features  in  a  way  that  will  exhibit  their 
relative  prominence  in  the  social  process.  Then  there  must 
be  a  quota  of  thinkers  who  will  help  us  to  take  our  bearings 
from  these  chief  landmarks. 

*  Vide  Professor  Henderson's  papers  cited  at  beginning  of  this  chapter. 


7i6  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

As  a  hint  of  the  sort  of  results  we  shall  reach,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  strategic  point  in  our  present  situation  is  that 
at  which  interests  and  opinions  collide  upon  the  theory  and 
practice  of  dividing  social  opportunity.  The  distinctive  fea- 
ture about  our  present  situation  is  its  exposure  of  the  poverty 
of  our  concept  democracy.  The  problems  of  today  are  not, 
in  the  strictest  sense,  economic.  The  economic  problems 
proper  are  in  principle  solved.  The  economic  theorists  are 
simply  more  perplexed  than  ever  over  the  correct  way  to 
formulate  what  has  been  accomplished.  The  sciences  by  appli- 
cation of  which  the  resources  of  the  earth  are  to  be  appro- 
priated are  in  our  possession.  The  rest  of  the  subjugation 
of  nature  is  merely  more  and  more  detail  in  applying  what 
we  already  know.  But  the  unsolved  problem  is :  How  shall 
these  resources  be  shared  ?  Who  shall  have  them,  and  on  what 
terms?  What  part  shall  these  material  goods  play  in  deter- 
mining individual  men's  relative  opportunity  to  get  on  in 
gaining  health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge,  beauty,  and 
Tightness   satisfaction  ? 

To  anticipate  still  further,  it  may  be  predicted  that  the 
next  principal  stage  in  the  social  process  will  be  essentially 
intellectual  and  ethical.  It  will  come  about  through  assimi- 
lation of  more  positive  ethical  perceptions,  and  through  adop- 
tion of  technical  social  devices  in  accordance  with  the  same.^ 

In  particular,  we  are  already  far  advanced  in  challenging, 
if  not  already  in  revising,  crudities  in  prevalent  conceptions 
of  property  rights.  The  principal  factors  producing  this 
change  are  not  a  priori  notions.  They  are  elements  of  the 
social  situation.  There  is  intolerable  maladjustment,  and  the 
social  pain  goads  us  to  find  and  remove  its  cause. 

But  this  is  getting  far  ahead  of  our  argument,  yet  not  too 
far  ahead,  if  we  are  effectively  reminded  by  the  survey  that 
the  ultimate  object  of  sociology  is  not  mere  pedantic  trifling 
with  academic  abstractions.  Its  object  is  intensely  and  funda- 
mentally practical. 

*  Another  aspect  of  this   proposition  has  been  presented   above,   chap.   27. 


THE  PREMISES  OF  PRACTICAL  SOCIOLOGY  717 

After  all  the  generalizing-  that  sociology  has  done,  and  with 
the  organized  results  of  this  work  as  a  background,  the  most 
difficult  task  that  sociologists  have  ever  encountered  is  waiting 
to  be  undertaken,  and  it  is  immediately  in  order.  It  is  the 
task  of  working  out  plans  and  specifications  for  an  exhibit 
which  will  be  the  most  complete  demonstration  human  intelli- 
gence can  reach,  of  the  exact  social  situation  in  which  we  find 
ourselves.  What  are  the  meaning  terms  in  our  actual  condi- 
tion, and  what  do  they  mean? 

To  express  it  less  abstractly:  At  what  have  we  arrived, 
and  in  ivhat  direction  lies  progress? 

The  best  beginning  I  have  been  able  to  make  toward  pro- 
posing an  answer  is  in  the  outline  contained  in  the  following 
chapter.  It  is  an  epitome  hy  title  only  of  the  dififerent  sorts  of 
thing  that  must  be  weighed  and  balanced  in  passing  a  com- 
prehensive judgment  upon  the  accomplished  facts  and  the 
indicated  needs  in  our  social  situation.  Dr.  Lester  F.  Ward 
has  proposed  the  thesis :  "  The  subject-matter  of  sociology 
is  human  achievement."^  Without  passing  upon  abstract 
questions  which  the  formula  provokes,  we  are  safe  in  saying 
that  human  achievement  is  surely  included  in  the  subject- 
matter  of  sociology.  I  have,  therefore,  acted  upon  Dr.  Ward's 
suggestion,  and  have  made  the  outline  in  terms  of  achievement. 

In  the  schedule  no  attempt  is  made  to  indicate  degrees  of 
importance  of  the  dififerent  specifications.  Many  of  the  titles 
stand  for  complex  groups  of  activities,  which  must  be  analyzed 
and  appraised.  Other  titles,  w^hich  stand  in  this  catalogue  as 
co-ordinate  with  those  just  referred  to,  represent  details  that 
are  trifling  in  comparison  with  the  chief  factors. 

*Pure  Sociology,  p.  15  ^*  passim. 


CHAPTER   L 

SOCIAL  ACHIEVEMENT   IN   THE   UNITED    STATES 

The  main  point  is  that  human  welfare  is  a  compound  of 
achievement  in  each  of  these  divisions  and  subdivisions  of 
effort,  and  that  no  estimate  of  a  social  situation  is  complete  that 
leaves  any  portion  of  either  division  of  achievement  out  of  the 
account. 

It  is  thus  assumed  that  the  whole  exhibit  presents  a  series 
of  problems  of  proportion  and  correlation.  No  claim  is  made 
that  the  conspectus  is  itself  a  sufficient  correlation  of  the  topics 
suggested.  They  are  presented  merely  as  a  tentative  catalogue, 
as  a  preliminary  survey,  not  as  a  theory  of  relative  values. 

CONSPECTUS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  SITUATION 

AS    GIVEN    IN    THE    PRESENT    STATE    OF    ACHIEVEMENT    AND    IN    UNSOLVED 
TECHNICAL   PROBLEMS 

GRAND  DIVISIONS 
I.   Achievement  in  Promoting  Health. 
II.   Achievement  in  Producing  Wealth. 

III.  Achievement  in  Harmonizing  Human  Relations. 

IV.  Achievement  in  Discovery  and  Spread  of  Knowledge. 
V.    Achievement  in  the  Fine  Arts. 

VI.   Achievement  in  Religion. 

DIVISION   I.     ACHIEVEMENT   IN   PROMOTING   HEALTH 

1.  Public  sanitation  and  hygiene,  including  systems  of  quarantine,  isola- 
tion and  colonization   (for  lepers,  epileptics,  etc.). 

2.  Preventive  and  curative  medicine  and  surgery,  including  the  apparatus 
of  hospitals,  dispensaries,  ambulances,  "  first  aid  "  instruction  to  police, 
etc. 

3.  Safeguards  against  accidents  and  protection  in  dangerous  occupations. 

4.  Fire  and  police  protection  in  general. 

5.  Development  of  dietetics  and  prevention  of  adulteration  of  food. 

6.  Protection  against  disease  germs  in  food. 

7.  Improved  dwellings  and  workshops. 

8.  Topographical  arrangements  of  cities,  especially  extension  of  work- 
men's dwellings  into  suburbs. 

718 


SOCIAL  ACHIEVEMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        719 

9.  Water,  light,  and  transportation  supply. 

10.  Parks,  playgrounds,  sewerage,  baths,  outings. 

11.  Promotion  of  temperance. 

12.  Control  of  sexual  vice,  and  treatment  of  its  consequences. 

13.  Shortening  the  labor  day. 

14.  Dress  reform. 

15.  Cooking  schools. 

16.  Disposal  of  the  dead. 

17.  Disposal  of  garbage  and  sewage. 

18.  Physical  culture,  gymnastics,  health  resorts. 

19.  Athletic  sports. 

DIVISION   II.     ACHIEVEMENT    IN    PRODUCING   WEALTH 

A.  Two  Points  of  View  . 

1.  Achievement  in  each  industry. 

2.  Achievement  in  each  country. 

I.  e.,  the  composite  view  must  include  total  achievement  in  all  indus- 
tries in  all  countries.     Another  double  view-point  is : 

1.  Achievement  in  production  merely. 

2.  Achievement  in  accumulation. 

B.  Certain  Forms  of  Achievement  Common  to  All  Industries. 

1.  Improved  tools  and  machinery. 

2.  In  use  of  waste  and  by-products. 

3.  Increase  in  amount  of  capital  invested  in  machinery. 

4.  Greater  skill  in  laborers. 

5.  Improved  managerial  ability. 

6.  Improved  processes  of  production. 

7.  Standardizing  of  weights  and  measures. 

8.  Improved  industrial  organizations. 

a)  In  division  of  labor. 

b)  In  size  of  plant. 

c)  In  co-ordination  with  other  industries ;    e.  g.,  fuel,  ore,  trans- 
portation, and  factory  in  hands  of  one  organization. 

9.  Localization  of  industry. 

a)  With  respect  to  nearness  of  raw  material. 

b)  With  respect  to  nearness  of  labor. 

c)  With  respect  to  nearness  to  market. 

10.  Increased  regularity  of  production. 

11.  New  uses  for  materials  and  products. 

12.  Improved  means  of  storing  and  preserving  products. 

13.  Achievement  in  the  development  of  motor  power. 

14.  Bounties,  tariffs,  subsidies,  patents,  etc.,  as  stimuli  of  production. 


720  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

C.    Achievement  in  the  Principal  Industries. 

1.  Extractive  industry. 

a)  Agriculture  and  grazing. 

b)  Stock-breeding. 

c)  Fisheries. 

d)  Forestry. 

e)  Exploitation  of  mineral  resources,  including  oil  and  gas. 
/)  Quarrying. 

g)  Irrigation. 

h)  Work  of  agricultural  experiment  stations, 
(i)  Extent  of  each  crop  or  output. 

(2)  Achievement  in  preserving  sources  of  supply. 

(3)  Achievement  in  the  peculiar  technique  of  the  industry. 

2.  Manufactures. 

a)  Food. 

(1)  Milk. 

(2)  Breakfast  foods. 

(3)  Slaughtering  and  meat-packing. 

(4)  Butter,  cheese,  and  oleo. 

(5)  Canning  and  preserving. 

(6)  Sah. 

(7)  Beet  sugar. 

(8)  Rice. 

(9)  Cottonseed  products. 

(10)  Alcoholic  liquors. 

(11)  Malt  liquors. 

(12)  Tobacco. 

(13)  Ice. 

(14)  Glucose. 

b)  Textiles. 

c)  Wood.    )  Including   metallurgical   progress   and   new   uses   for 

d)  Metals,  f  mineral  products. 

e)  Chemicals. 
/)  Vehicles. 

g)   Clay,  glass,  and  stone  products. 
h)   Explosives  and  firearms. 

3.  Achievement  in  all  branches  of  engineering,  except  as  more  properly 
discussed  in  Division  I. 

4.  Achievement  in  the  building  arts. 

5.  Achievement  in  the  handicrafts. 


SOCIAL  ACHIEVEMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        721 

6.  Transportation. 

a)  Marine. 

(i)   Structure  of  vessels. 

(2)  Charts,  lighthouses,  life-saving  stations,  and  other  protec- 
tions of  navigation. 

(3)  The  Weather  Bureau. 

b)  Land. 

(i)  Jlailroads. 

(2)  Urban  transit. 

(3)  Autos  and  other  vehicles. 

(4)  Improved  highways. 

(5)  Improved  water-ways. 

7.  Means  of  communication. 

a)  Postal  systems. 

b)  Telegraph  and  telephone  systems. 

c)  Minor  improvements ;    e.  g.,  tubular  posts,  messenger  service, 
organization  of  news  service,  etc. 

8.  Achievement  in  the  art  of  printing  and  in  methods  of  publication. 

9.  Achievement  in  trade  and  commerce. 

a)  Improvement    in    machinery    for    bringing    buyer    and    seller 
together;    produce  exchanges,  etc. 

b)  Commercial  banking  and  credit. 

c)  Savings  institutions. 

d)  Insurance. 

e)  International  commerce. 

f)  Domestic  commerce. 
10.    Shipbuilding. 

DIVISION    III.      ACHIEVEMENT    IN    HARMONIZING    HUMAN 
RELATIONS 

I.  e.,  in  adjusting  relations  of  groups  to  groups  and  of  individuals  to 
individuals  in  the  process  of  securing  proportional  shares  in  political, 
industrial,  and  social  opportunity ;  i.  e.,  achievement  in  harmonizing  claims 
respecting  primarily  — 

A.  Political  Rights. 

B.  Industry  and  Property. 

C.  Opportunities  for  Culture.' 

These  may  be  indicated  more  in  detail  as  follows,  viz. : 
A.     Political  Achievement. 

I.    Between  nations  within  the  international-law  group. 

^  In  this  schedule  the  term  "  culture  "  is  used  in  the  more  popular  sense ; 
not  in  contrast  with  "  civilization,"  as  above,  p.  59  et  passim. 


722  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

a)  Achievement  in  definition  of  rights  through  alliances,  treaties, 
spheres  of  interest,  mediation,  arbitration,  etc. 

b)  Achievement  in  securing  international  peace,  and  in  improving 
articles  of  war. 

2.  Between  the  international-law  group  and  other  peoples. 

a)  Administration  of  dependencies. 

b)  International  status  of  non-civilized  peoples. 

3.  Adjustment  of  political  balance  between  minor  political  units  and 
the  central  power    (local  self-government). 

4.  Achievement  in  admission  of  individuals  and  classes  to  civic  rights. 

5.  Achievement  in  civic  organization. 

a)  Responsibilities  of  ministries. 

b)  Enhanced   representative   character   of   parliaments. 

c)  Enlistment  of   expert   service   in   administration    (including  all 
branches  civil  and  military). 

d)  Improvements  in  fiscal  systems. 

e)  Improvements  in  currency  systems. 

6.  Improvements  in  status  of  aliens  and  in  naturalization  laws. 

7.  Movements   aimed  at   further  civic  progress   largely  by  voluntary 
initiative. 

0)  Agitation  for  extension  of  constitutional  guarantees  (in  various 
countries  of  the  world). 

b)  Organization  of  political  parties. 

c)  Agitation  for  minor  political  reforms. 

(i)  In  principle  of  representation,  e.  g.,  minority  representation. 

(2)  In  control  of  nominations  and  elections. 

(3)  In  popular  check  upon  legislation  (initiative  and  refer- 
endum). 

{4)  Enlargement  of  areas  of  uniform  regulations  (in  conti- 
nental Europe  imperial  federation,  in  Great  Britain  colonial 
federation,  in  the  United  States  uniform  legislation  of 
states,  etc.). 

(5)  In  extension  of  the  merit  system. 

(6)  Good-government  clubs  of  the  various  types. 

(7)  Associations   for  promoting  international   peace. 

B.    Achievement  in  Harmonizing  Industrial  and  Property  Interests. 
I.    Primarily  by  law . 

a)  Improved  legal  status  of  various  kinds  of  property;   partnerships, 
corporations,  franchises,  etc. 

b)  Removal  of  artificial  barriers  to  enterprise    (international  and 
domestic)  ;    i.  e.,  increased  freedom  of  industry  and  migration. 

c)  Labor  laws. 


SOCIAL  ACHIEVEMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        723 

d)  Homestead  laws. 

e)  Laws  protecting  seamen. 
/)  Arbitration  laws. 

g)   Simplification  of  procedure. 

h)  Checks  on  oppressive  power  of  capitalistic  or  labor  organiza- 
tions. 

i)  Governmental  pensions  and  insurance. 

y)  Governmental  supervision  of  industrial  and  commercial  enter- 
prise, including  departments  of  agriculture,  commerce,  trans- 
portation, bureaus  of  labor,  etc. 

k)  State  ownership  of  industries. 

/)  Improvements  in  status  of  married  women  and  of  children,  both 
as  to  property  and  as  to  industry. 

m)  Municipal  pawn-shops. 

«)  Asset  banking. 

0)  Improvement  in  legal  status  of  professional  and  personal  service, 
(i)   Clergymen. 

(2)  Lawyers. 

(3)  Teachers. 

(4)  Physicians. 

(5)  Dentists. 

(6)  Pharmacists. 

(7)  Artists. 

(8)  Clerks  and  other  salaried  employees. 

(9)  Domestic  servants. 
2.    By  voluntary  action. 

a)  Capitalistic  and  labor  organizations. 

b)  Organizations  among  farmers. 

c)  Same  among  farm  laborers. 

d)  Profit-sharing  and  other  forms  of  partnership  between  labor 
and  capital. 

e)  Improved  forms  of  labor  contract  —  the  sliding  scale,  etc. 

f)  Private  pension  systems. 

g)  Private  insurance  systems. 

h)  Organization  in  other  occupations;  i.  e.,  forestry,  mining,  fish- 
eries, etc. 
t)   Progress  in  apprentice  systems. 

/)  Organizations  of  professional  and  other  occupations. 
C.    Achievement  in  Harmonizing  Culture  Interests. 

(Using  the   term   "  culture "   to   include   all    interests   not   more   con- 
veniently classified  under  political  rights,  property,  or  industry.) 
I.    Primarily  legal. 


724  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

o)  Marriage  and  divorce  laws. 

b)  Laws  affecting  freedom  of  thought,  research,  speech,  publication, 
teaching,  and  worship. 

c)  Laws  removing  culture  disabilities  from  individuals  and  classes. 

d)  Public  institutions  for  culture, 
(i)  Churches. 

(2)  Schools  of  all  grades  and  types  scheduled  in  Division  IV, 
Part  II. 

(3)  Libraries  and  reading-rooms. 

(4)  Art  galleries. 

(5)  Theaters. 

(6)  Concerts. 

(7)  Recreation  halls  and  grounds. 

(8)  Baths. 

e)  Laws  aimed  at  improvement  of  rural  social  conditions. 
2.    Primarily  voluntary. 

a)  Organizations  for  protection  of  the  family. 

b)  Private  foundations  for  the  different  cultural  purposes  scheduled 
above. 

c)  Women's  clubs. 

d)  Municipal,  national,  and  international  missions. 

e)  Social  settlements. 

/)   Neighborhood  guilds. 

g)   Municipal  improvement  associations. 

h)   Child-saving. 

j)  Children's  aid  societies. 

/)  Forms  of  social  intercourse  and  recreation. 
In  addition  to  the  three  main  divisions  of  human  relations  thus  out- 
lined we  must  schedule : 
D.    Achievement  in  Treatment  of  the  Subsocial  Classes. 

1.  Dependents. 

2.  Defectives. 

3.  Delinquents: 

In  this  case,  as  with  A,  B,  and  C  above,  we  must  examine,  first,  the 
legal,  second,  the  voluntary  systems  and  efforts  which  aim  to  prevent,  to 
restrain,  and  to  cure  the  development  of  these  classes. 

DIVISION  IV.    ACHIEVEMENT  IN  KNOWLEDGE 
PART  I.      ACHIEVEMENT  IN  DISCOVERY 
A.     General  Questions. 

1.  What  discoveries  and   inventions  have  been  made? 

2.  What  improvements  have  been  made  in  the  methods   of   research  ? 

3.  What  improvements  have  been  made  in  the  apparatus  of  research? 


SOCIAL  ACHIEVEMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        725 

4.  What    improvements    have    been    made    in    the    organization    of 
research  ? 

5.  What    gains    have   been    made    in    providing    financial    means    for 
research  ? 

6.  What  rewards  and  other  incentires  are  available  for  discovery  and 
invention  ? 

B.    Achievement  in  the  Sciences. 

1.  The  inorganic  sciences. 

2.  The  organic  sciences. 

3.  The  psychological  sciences,  including  child-study  and  pedagogy. 

4.  The  linguistic  sciences. 

5.  Literary  criticism  and  interpretation. 

6.  The  archseological  sciences. 

7.  The  historical  sciences. 

8.  The  economic  sciences. 

9.  The  statistical  sciences. 

10.  The  administrative  sciences. 

11.  The  sociological  sciences. 

12.  Philosophy. 

13.  Ethics. 

14.  Theology. 

15.  The  technological  sciences. 

PART  II.      ACHIEVEMENT   IN    MAKING  KNOWLEDGE  ACCESSIBLE 

A.    Education,  Public  and  Private. 

1.  Achievement  in  the  different  forms  of  education. 

a)  Intellectual  education. 

(i)  Kindergarten  and  primary. 

(2)  Secondary. 

(3)  Higher. 

(4)  Professional. 

b)  Moral  education. 

c)  Religious  education. 

d)  ^Esthetic  education. 

e)  Physical  education. 

f)  Manual  training. 

g)  Trade  and  craft  education. 
h)   Education  of  defectives. 

2.  Achievement  of  different  educational  institutions, 
o)  Universities  and  professional  schools. 

b)  Colleges. 

c)  Secondary  schools. 


726  GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 

d)  Chautauquas. 

e)  Primary  schools,   including  kindergartens. 
/)  University  extension. 

g)  Trade  schools. 

h)   Evening  schools. 

i)   Sunday  schools. 

y)  Literary  clubs. 

k)   Schools  for  defectives. 

B.  Other  Means  of  Education. 

1.  Museums. 

2.  Art  galleries. 

3.  Libraries. 

4.  Lecture  platform. 

5.  Expositions. 

6.  The  press. 

a)  The  periodical  press. 

(i)  Achievement  of  different  classes  of  periodicals:  news- 
papers, magazines,  including  periodical  scientific  publica- 
tions, trade  journals,  fraternal  periodicals,  including  labor 
papers,  religious  papers. 

(2)  Progress  toward  low-priced  periodicals. 

(3)  Improvement  in  the  quality  of  periodical  literature. 

b)  Books  and  pamphlets. 

7.  The  learned  societies. 

8.  The  pulpit  as  an  educational  force. 

9.  Improved  postal,  telegraph,  and  telephone  facilities  as  factors  in  the 
spread  of  knowledge. 

10.  Governmental  bureaus  for  the  collection  and  spread  of  knowledge. 

11.  International  commerce  in  knowledge. 

12.  Comparison  of  educational  institutions  of  different  nations. 

C.  Achievement  in  Educational  Technique. 

1.  In  pedagogical  methods. 

2.  In  pedagogical  apparatus,  textbooks,  etc. 

3.  In  co-ordination  of  educational  institutions. 

4.  In  progress  toward  rational  co-ordination  of  studies. 

5.  In  educational  finances. 

6.  In  administration  of  educational  institutions. 

7.  In  compulsory  education. 

DIVISION    V.      ACHIEVEMENT    IN    ESTHETIC    CREATION    AND    IN 
POPULAR  APPRECIATION  OF  ART  PRODUCTS 

A.  Literature. 

B.  Sculpture. 

C.  Painting. 


SOCIAL  ACHIEVEMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        Tzy 

D.  Music. 

E.  Architecture. 

F.  Landscape  Architecture. 

G.  The  Minor  Arts. 

DIVISON   VI.     ACHIEVEMENT    IN    RELIGION 

A.  In  defining  standards  of  religious  authority. 

B.  In  shifting  center  of  rehgious  interests  from  another  life  to  present 
life. 

C.  In  enlarged  religious  tolerance,  with  distinction  between  religion  and 
theology. 

D.  In  definite  religious  tendencies,  promoted  by  the  example  of  eminent 
religious  men  of  the  century;  e.  g.,  Pope  Leo  XIII,  Cardinal  Newman, 
Phillips  Brooks,  Spurgeon,  Moody,  General  Booth,  etc.,  etc. 

E.  In  federation  of  religious  effort. 

F.  In  religious  extension. 

G.  In  local,  national,  and  international  enlargement  of  the  sphere  of  reli- 
gious activities. 

The  problem  of  understanding  our  social  situation  may  be 
expressed  as  the  problem  of  making  a  better  outline  than  the 
above  of  the  facts  that  have  a  bearing  upon  individual  and 
social  welfare  at  the  present  moment.  The  problems  of  social 
technology  are  presented  by  the  several  situations  discovered 
in  such  survey,  and  considered  as  partially  realized  satisfactions 
of  human  interests. 


CHAPTER    LI 

CONCLUSION 

One  cannot  have  made  the  foregoing  argument  in  igno- 
rance that  to  most  minds  it  must  seem  a  mere  churning  of 
words.  It  affects  even  rather  mature  students  of  social  science, 
and  almost  invariably  specialists  in  other  departments,  as  a 
species  of  speculation  for  which  one  can  have  no  serious  respect 
without  incurring  suspicion  of  mental  unbalance.  Men 
attached  to  the  traditions  of  the  older  social  sciences,  and  still 
more  men  who  have  no  use  for  any  social  doctrine  except 
schemes  of  immediate  reform,  honestly  believe  that  sociology 
is  profitless  refinement  of  academic  trifles.  To  this  state  of 
mind  we  must  cheerfully  respond:  If  sociology  is  profitless, 
by  all  means  let  it  alone.  Wisdom  is  justified  of  her  children, 
but  she  is  always  compromised  when  the  unwise  claim  her 
maternity.  It  would  be  a  delightful  clearing  of  the  atmos- 
phere if  fewer  people  would  call  themselves  sociologists,  and 
more  would  absorb  a  very  little  of  the  sociological  spirit. 
Each  man  who  has  intelligence  enough  to  deal  with  any  por- 
tion of  social  science  rationally,  or  with  any  part  of  social 
amelioration  sanely,  would  be  more  rational,  and  more  sane, 
and  more  effective,  if  he  would  learn  to  place  what  he  does 
within  the  larger  perspective  that  sociology  affords.  There  is 
always  danger,  to  be  sure,  that  reflection  will  turn  Hotspurs 
into  Hamlets.  The  philosopher  may  find  so  many  things  to 
think  of  that  he  can  choose  nothing  to  do.  To  that  extent  and 
in  that  sense,  sociology,  like  all  science  and  all  philosophy,  is  a 
possible  hindrance  to  action.  On  the  other  hand,  action  not 
sanctioned  by  science  and  philosophy  is  blind,  and  thought  that 
stops  short  of  the  utmost  comprehension  of  its  object  is 
impotent.  The  people  who  are  content  with  such  thought  and 
action  invite  the  penalties  of  both  weakness  and  vice.     The 

728 


CONCLUSION  729 

profoundest  and  most  comprehensive  thoug-ht  is  not  for  every- 
body at  first  hand.  But,  while  the  world  does  not  need  many 
professional  sociologists,  it  does  need  sociology.  For  weal  or 
for  woe,  we  have  arrived  at  a  stage  of  life  in  which  social 
gravitation  is  more  and  more  arrested  and  deflected,  and  per- 
haps reversed  by  social  theory.  Men  think  today  about  social 
relations,  and  in  the  spirit  of  their  thought  they  act.  To  do 
the  right  thing,  except  by  accident,  in  any  social  situation,  we 
must  rightly  think  the  situation.  We  must  think  it  not  merely 
in  itself,  but  in  all  its  connections.  Sociology  aims  to  become 
the  lens  through  which  such  insight  may  'be  possible.  There 
must  be  credible  sociologists  in  order  that  there  may  be  far- 
seeing  economists  and  statesmen  and  moralists,  and  that  each 
of  us  may  be  an  intelligent  specialist  at  his  particular  post. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Absolute  hostility,  190,  195,  204,  244, 
290. 

Absolute  vs.  constitutional  State,  297. 

Achievement:  as  subject-matter  of 
sociology,  717;  collective,  188;  in 
art,  726;  in  health,  718;  in  knowl- 
edge, 724  ;  in  religion,  727  ;  in  so- 
ciability, 721  ;    in  wealth,  719. 

Achievement,  social,  in  the  United 
States,  718  flf. 

Adams,   R.,  623. 

Adler,  G.,  337. 

Administrations  as  parties  in  conflict, 

293- 

Alexander,  S.,  430. 

Ambiguity  as  means  of  struggle,  313. 

Amnion,  O.,  419. 

Anerkennung,  459. 

Anthropo-geographical  view  of  his- 
tory, SI  ff. 

Aristocracies,   partnerships   of,   299. 

Aristotle,   61,   474. 

Arunta,    210. 

Ascendency,  social,  485. 

Assimilation,  social,   255. 

Association,  501  ff . ;  defined,  505  ; 
human,  27  ;  unity  of,  103  ;  vs. 
"society,"   184,   185,  504,  508. 

Associations,  human :  considered  as 
processes,  217  ;  considered  as  func- 
tions,  217. 

Atkinson,  J.  J.,  208. 

Attraction,  564  ff. 

Austrian  school,  553,  554. 

Authority,  social,  212. 

Baldwin,  F.  S.,  90. 

Baldwin,  J.  M.,  416,  429  ff.,  432,  443, 

476,   506,  681. 
Barbarism,    described,    215,    331,    333, 

345- 
Barth,  P.,  44  ff.,  47.  51,  53,  SS,  59.  60, 

61,  64,  65,  67,  68,  69,  71,  72,  74,  80, 

82,  87. 
Bastian,  A.,  224. 
Beauty-interest,    198,  465. 
Biological  figures,  use  of,  74,  157. 
"  Biological  sociology,"  75,  76,  77,  78, 

79- 
Biological   vs.  social   process,   208. 
Biology  and  sociology,   7,  43,   67,  92, 

209. 


Blackmar,   F.   W.,   563. 
Blood-bond,  190. 
Bluntschli,  J.  K.,  226. 
Boardman,   G.   D.,   75. 
Bosanquet,  B.,  87,  90,  681. 
Bossuet,  J.  B.,  40. 
Bowne,  B.  P.,  684. 
Branford,  V.  V.,  4,  90. 
Brinton,  D.  G.,  56. 
Brooks,   P.,   240,   3S3. 
Bryce,  J.,  298,  311. 
Buckle,  H.  T.,  40,  53,  417. 

Caldwell,  W.,  90. 

Capital,    social    meaning    of,    268. 

Carlyle,  T.,  410. 

Causation,  social,  elements  of,  626. 

Chamberlin,   T.   C,   52,   567. 

Chemistry    and    sociology,    6. 

Choices,  as  differentia  of  human  as- 
sociation,  207. 

Civilization,  215  ;  described,  248,  331, 
333.  344.  345,  363.  368,  374  ;  logic 
of,  358  ;  Ratzenhofer's  analysis  of 
stages,  216;  Schaffle's  analysis  of 
stages,  166  ;    vs.  culture,  59. 

Civilizing  forces,  direct  effects  of,  363. 

Civilizing  program :  demands  of, 
346 ;     Ratzenhofer's    series,    355. 

Classes :  industrial,  political  power 
of,  267  ;  stratification  of,  as  social 
symptom,  379. 

Classification  in  sociology,  65,   73. 

Cobb,  H.  I.,  60s. 

Collectivism  vs.  individualism,  473, 
474.  478. 

Community,   582. 

Compromise :  political  reasons  for, 
307  ;    subordinate  reasons  for,   308. 

Comte,  A.,  3,  35,  36,  65,  66,  67,  68, 
69.  70.  71.  72,  77,  78,  81,  84,  524, 
607. 

Conditions  of  the  social  process  (ex- 
ternal),   164  ;     (social),   ibid. 

Conflict,  499  ff. ;  modern,  formulated, 
390-94 ;  of  interests  in  State,  281, 
304  ff._ 

Conjunction  and  opposition,  simul- 
taneous existence  of,  205.  — ^^..^^^ 

Conquest-State  vs.  culture-State,    i9?^| 

Constitutional  vs.  absolute  State,  297. 


733 


734 


GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 


Consciousness :  of  kind,  368,  369 ; 
social,   546. 

Constitutions,  social,    124. 

Constraint,  civic,  types  of  represented 
by   States,  242  ff. 

Contact,  486. 

Control,   system  of,    191. 

Cooley,  C.  H.,  443. 

Co-operation:  compulsory,  126;  out- 
come of  struggle,  357  ff. ;  social, 
123,  124;  test  of  civilization,  710; 
voluntary,    127. 

Co-ordination,  social,  585. 

Corporate    interests,    278. 

Corporations  as  supermen,  517. 

Correlation,    functional,    150. 

Creedal  interest,  258. 

Culture :  defined,  344,  345  ;  de- 
scribed, 368,  374;    function  of,   191, 

193- 
Culture-history,  59  ff. 
Culture-State  z's.  conquest-State,    195. 
Culture   vs.   civilization,    59. 
Cummings,   J.,    56. 

"Data"    of   sociology    (Spencer),    99. 

Davidson,  T.,  478. 

De  Greef,  G.,  69,   70,   71,  72,   73,  83, 

90,  94,  234,  23s,  236,  486,  542,  564, 

607. 
Demand,    economic,    a    moral    factor, 

579- 

Democracy,  experiences  of,  389. 

Deniker,    J.,    12. 

Description,    telic    element    in,    32    ff. 

Descriptive  sociology,  69,   11 1,  447. 

Desire,  vs.  "  interest  "  and  "  want," 
436,    445- 

Desperates    vs.    radicals,    290. 

Despotism :  reaction  of  popular  in- 
terests upon,  294  ;  veto  of  politics, 
294. 

Dewey,  J.,  99,  365,  433,  480,  486,  506, 
642,  684. 

Dietzel,  H.,  45,  92,  97,  443,  488. 

Differentiation,      491  ;       of     interests, 

233- 
Differentiations,   social,    118,    121,   129, 

134,   146,    147,   190,    191,   192,   193. 
Discreteness,   social,   580. 
Discontinuity,  social,   140. 
Distributing  system,    121,   151. 
Domestic      institutions,      afterthought 

in  Spencer's  philosophy,  112,  113. 
Dooley,  on  the  Irish  question,  289. 
^raper,  J.  W.,   53. 
^Dualism,    real   and    apparent,    55,    79, 

81. 
"  Dualistic  "  sociology,  80,  81,  82. 


Dubois-Reymond,    E.,   60. 

Dugdale,  R.  L.,  563. 

Durkheim,    £.,   4,    215,    361,   412,    512, 

564,  642. 
Dynamic   law,   investigation   of,   80. 
Dynamic  question  in  sociology,  95. 
Dynamic   sociology,  86. 
Dynastic   interest,   277. 

Economic  classes,  partnerships  of, 
299. 

Economic  man,   fallacy  of,  41    ff. 

Economic  view  of  history,  61. 

Egoism,    psychological    value    of,    365. 

Ellwood,  C.  A.,  623,  640,  643. 

Emerson,   R.  W.,  416,  469,  577. 

Empirical  sociology,   129. 

Ends:  vs.  functions,  174-76,  233  ff. ; 
social,  537  ff. 

Entity,  social,  analysis  of,  115,  132, 
143. 

Environment :  physical,  405  ;  spirit- 
ual,   482  ;     subjective,    544    ff. 

Equality :  functional,  348 ;  need  of 
defining,   250. 

Equilibration    of    persons,    348. 

Equilibrium  of  interests,   263. 

Espinas,  A.,  59. 

Ethical  law  of  the  world,  321. 

Ethics  and  sociology,  663. 

Ethnological  view  of  history,   55. 

Evolution,   social,    129,    160. 

Explanation,  social,  in  excess  of  de- 
scription, 621. 

Failure,  tactical  results  of,   317. 

Fashion,  as  means  of  social  struggle, 
277. 

Feuerbach,   L.   A., '415. 

Fichte,  J.   G.,  460. 

Fisher,   H.   A.   L.,   556. 

Fiske,  J.,   70,   248,  416,  638. 

Flint,    R.,    46. 

Fogel,  P.  H.,  88. 

Food-interest,    189,    196. 

Forces :  social,  532  ff. ;  social  vs. 
non-social,    419. 

Fourier,  F.  M.  C,  36. 

Freedom,  need  of  defining,  250. 

Function  >  social,  relation  to  struc- 
ture,   531  ;     value    of   concept,    176. 

Functional  view  of  social  process,  217. 

Functions:  social,  119,  135,  147,  148, 
167-69,  172,  173,  176,  2H,  527;  vs. 
ends,    174-76,   233   ff. 

Gaming  instinct,  484. 

Gardiner,   S.   R.,   555. 

Geddcs,  P.,  53. 

Genetio  question  in  sociology,  94. 


INDEX 


735 


Gibbons,  Cardinal,  409. 

Gidings,  F.  H.,  4..,  69,  80,  84,  88,  90, 

313,    368,    369,    399,    402,    484,    SI  I, 

513.  552.   553,  555,  561,  642,  643. 
Gierke  O.,  24,  281. 
Gillen,  F.  J.,  210. 
Gilman,  D.  C,  53. 
Government :    political  significance  of, 

292  ;    z's.  State,  226,  244,  292. 
Governments  :     partnerships    of,    297  ; 

varieties  of,  Ratzenhofer's  analysis, 

297. 
Green,  J.  R.,  iii,  690. 
Groppali,   A.,   82. 
Group,   form  of,   498. 
Group-individuality,    601. 
Groups,  495. 
Growth,    social,    115,    117,    134,    144, 

145. 
Gumplowicz,  L.,  86,  87,  287,  422,  498, 
499,  600. 

Hadley,  A.  T.,  394. 

Harrington,  R.  M.,  225. 

Haurion,  M.,  80,  84. 

Hawthorne,  N.,  448. 

Hayes,  E.  C.,  3,  623. 

Headship,  social,  stability  of,   125. 

Health-interest,    198,   426,   447. 

Hegel,   G.   W.   F.,   3,   40. 

Henderson,  C.  R.,  655,  683,  705,  715. 

Herder,  J.  G.,  40,  53,  54,  80. 

Herodotus,  53. 

Hippocrates,   53,   417. 

Historiology,   as   name   for  a   section 

of  sociology,   16. 
History :     and     sociology,     46 ;      an- 

thropo-geographical  view  of,  51   ff.; 

economic  view  of,  61  ;    ethnological 

view    of,    55  ;     ideological   view   of, 

61  ;    individualistic  view  of,  47  ff. ; 

materialistic  interpretation  of,  283  ; 

of  culture,  59  ff. ;   political  view,  of, 

61. 
Hoffding,  H.,  430,  684. 
Hostility:     absolute,    190,     195,    204, 

244,  290 ;    relative,  244. 

Ideological  view  of  history,  61. 

Individual :  analyzed,  443  ff. ;  con- 
cept of,  185  ;  psychological  vs.  so- 
ciological interest  in,  431  ;  social 
meanings  of,  470. 

Individualism  vs.  collectivism,  473, 
474,  478. 

Individualistic  view  of  history,  47  ff. 

Individualization,    191,    192,    589,   590. 

Individuals:  described,  480;  as  dif- 
ferentiations of  groups,   208 ;    mul- 


tiple functions  of,  151  ;  persistence 
of,  595  ff. ;  sense  in  which  inde- 
pendent, 138. 

Industrial  type,  125,  126. 

Influence,   continuity   of,   611    ff. 

Imitation  defined,  627. 

Ingram,  J.  K.,   225. 

Innovating  principle,  237,  239,  240, 
241. 

Integration,  social,  117,   129,   145. 

Interdependence,  567  ff.  ;  social,  il- 
lustrated,   136. 

Interest:  conflict  of,  in  State,  281  ; 
defined,  433  ;  of  class  vs.  indi- 
viduals, 265  ;  public,  245  ;  univer- 
sal, 253  ;  vs.  "  desire  "  and  "  want," 
436,  445- 

Interests,  i86,  194,  196,  198,  208,  213, 
214,  219,  237,  425  ff.,  435,  43(5  ff. ; 
conflict  of,  203,  372  ff. ;  conjunc- 
tion of,  203  ;  differentiation  of, 
233  ;  equilibrium  of,  263  ;  exclu- 
siveness  of,  201,  281  ;  integration 
of,  305,  306 ;  mixed,  in  enforcing 
law,  438  ;  moral  criterion  of,  280  ; 
ideological  implications  of,  446 ; 
vs.  social  forms,  as  criteria  of 
progress,   219. 

Iroquois    Confederacy,   222. 

James,  W.,   478. 

Judgments,  moral :  logical  form  of, 
666  ff. ;  relation  of  process-concep- 
tion to,  674  ff. ;  sociological  con- 
tent of,  678  ff. 

Justice,  602  ff. 

Kant,  I.,   321,  337,  351. 

Kidd,  B.,  354,  590. 

Kingsley,  C,  36. 

Kinship-interest,  254. 

Kistiakowski,    T.,    643. 

Knowledge :  social,  problem  of,  624  ; 
vs.  assumption,  387 ;  what  is  of 
most  worth?   109. 

Knowledge-interest,  198,  461  ;  con- 
tradictory appraisals  of,  383,  384. 

Lacombe,  P.,  72. 

Lang,  J.  D.,  208. 

Law :  and  morality,  295  ;  as  equilib- 
rium of  interests,  296  ;  as  stimulus 
of  civic  power,  295  ;  function  of, 
358. 

Leadership,   political,   311. 

Lecky,  W.   E.   H.,  410. 

Le  Play,  P.  F.,  96,  607.  m 

l.ibby,  O.  G.,  283. 

Lilienfeld,  P.,  76,  77. 

Loria,  A.,  419. 


736 


GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 


Longfellow,  H.  W.,  521. 
"Lordship  of  things,"  451  fT. 
Lotze,   H.,  40,  416. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  m. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,   no,  577. 

Mackenzie,  J.    S.,   80,   83. 

Maine,  Sir  H.,   113. 

Marx,   K.,   40,   283. 

Masaryk,  T.   G.,   16,  284. 

Materialistic  interpretation  of  history, 
283. 

Maurice,  J.  F.  D.,  36. 

McCarthy.  C,  282. 

McCullough,  J.  E.,  563. 

McGilvary,  E.  B.,  443. 

Mead,  G.  H.,  472. 

Menger,  C.,  554. 

Metamorphoses,   social,    127,    128. 

Method,  the  desirable,  in  sociology, 
90. 

Methodological   tasks,   94,    95. 

Militant  type,   125,   126. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  36,  225,  410,  656. 

Mommsen,  T.,  317. 

Money,  as  means  of  social  contact, 
267. 

Monism  vs.  dualism,  55,  79,  81,  82. 

Montesquieu,  C.  de  S.,  40,  225. 

Morality :  and  law,  295  ;  of  barbar- 
ism vs.  civilization,  333  ;  objective, 
defined,   592. 

Moralization    vs.    struggle,    327. 

Morgan,  L.   H.,  215,  222. 

Morphology,  social,  158. 

Mougeolle,  P.,  54. 

Multiple   working   hypothesis,    52. 

Multiplicity,  of  individuals,  561. 

Mumford,  E.,  212,  312. 

Miinsterberg,   H.,  638. 

National  interest,  255. 
National     interests     in     the     United 
States,   Ratzenhofer's  forecast,   256. 
Nationalitdtsgefiihl,    548. 
Necessity,    social,    193. 
Nietzsche,  F.,  512. 

Opportunity,  as  test  of  social  condi- 
tion,  376   ff. 

Opposition  and  conjunction,  simul- 
taneous existence  of,  205. 

Order,  social,    195. 

Organic  concept,  74,  75. 

Organism,    social,    75,    115,    116,    120, 
122,    123,   124,   185;    psychic  nature 
of,   141. 
T)rgans,   social,    118,    119. 

Ostrogorski,   M.,   291. 

Owen,  R.,  36. 


Pais,  E.,  317, 

Parties:  as  fulcrum  of  interests,  291  ; 
composition  of,  287 ;  degrees  of 
attachment  to,  308  ;  dynamic  rela- 
tions of,  305  ;  factional  influence 
in,  309  ;  fighting  strength  of,  289  ; 
fundamental  antagonism  of,  290 ; 
molecular  changes  in,  287  ;  open 
vs.  secret,  291  ;    stability  of,  290. 

Party  afllinities  287. 

Patten,   S.   N.,   60,   76,   419,   544,   575. 

Pearson,  K.,  280. 

Pecuniary    interests,    260. 

Personality,  composition   of,   454. 

Phillips,   N.   B.,   282. 

Philosophy  of  history  and  sociology, 
44   ff-,   62,  63. 

Physics  and  sociology,   5. 

Plato,  54,  684. 

Plurality    of    individuals,    561. 

Political  groups,  governing  idea  of, 
312. 

Political   veiw   of  history,   61. 

Politics :  nature  of,  Ratzenhofer's 
summary,  318;  social,  described, 
318. 

Powell,  J.  W.,  596. 

Power,  ultimate  sources  of,  293. 

Principles,  political,  Ratzenhofer's 
definition  of,  237,  287,  288. 

Proal,    L.,   410. 

Problem :  of  socialization,  389,  390 ; 
the  social,  279 ;  the  sociological, 
330,  594- 

Problems :  moral,  unknown  quantity 
in,  662  ff. ;  of  sociology,  98  ff.,  104, 
105,  183  ff.,  373;  social,  in  terms 
of  personal   units,  40 1. 

Process,  social,  3,  5,  8,  10,  11,  18,  104, 
105,  191,  193,  196,  199,  200,  201, 
203,  205,  208,  209,  212,  215,  216, 
217.  234.  513.  519.  621,  637  ;  a  per- 
petual becoming,  240 ;  animus  of, 
318;  content  of,  344;  described, 
20s,  242,  284,  327,  331,  339.  552; 
difficulty  of  understanding,  200 ; 
elements  of,  196 ;  final  force  in, 
339 ;  incidents  of,  559  ff. ;  indi- 
cated end  of,  240  ;  nature  of,  201 
ff.  ;  primitive,  207  ;  prognosis  of, 
522  ;  Ratzenhofer's  analysis,  284  ; 
rhythm  of  differentiations  and  inte- 
grations, 227,  228 ;  stages  of ;  202, 
213  ;  summary  of,  619  ;  vs.  biologi- 
cal, 208  ■  7>s.  repair  of  structure, 
214. 

Process,    socializing,    325. 

Processes,   social,    176,    188. 


I 


INDEX 


737 


Progress,  implications  of,  374. 

Prilgeljunge,  460. 

Pseudo-classes,  268. 

Psychogenesis,  social,   163. 

Psychological  universals,  87,  89. 

Psychology,  social,  158,  159;  func- 
tion of,  637 ;  initial  problems  of, 
640  ;  problems  of,  622  ff.,  625  ;  two 
types  of  cases,  642. 

Psychology  vs.  sociology,  447,  488, 
535,  624,  645. 

Purposes :  collective,  370 ;  social, 
determining  historical  categories, 
no,  188,  199;  social,  enlarging 
concept  of  function,  170;  social, 
149,    170,   173. 

Qualitative  analysis,  social,  281. 

Radicals  vs.  desperates,   290. 

Rank   interests,   274   fif. 

Ratzenhofer,  G.,  80,  188,  189  ff.,  416, 
432,  467,  491,  492,  499,  513,  541, 
561,  601,  614,  619;  estimate  of, 
286,  371  ;  epitome  of  his  theory, 
189. 

Regularity  of  reaction,  369. 

Regulating  system,    122,    152. 

Reich,  £.,  16. 

Relationships,  social,   194. 

Religious  bodies,  partnership  of,  298.' 

Renan,   E.,   410. 

Repulsion,  566  ff. 

Restraint,  social,  238. 

Revolution,  French,  in  terms  of  pro- 
cess, 515. 

Rightness-interest,    198,   465. 

Ripley,  W.  Z.,  53. 

Ritter,  Karl,  53,  54. 

Robertson,  F.  W.,  36. 

Roosevelt,  T.,   298. 

Ross,  E.  A.,  3,  16,  80,  198,  312,  329, 
399,  401,  485,  498,  500,  514,  532, 
619,  643. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  225. 

Royce,  J.,    185,  443,  630. 

Ruskin,  J.,  36. 

Savagery,  215. 

Schaffle,  A.,   75,   76,   77,   157-79.  619; 

contrasted   with    Spencer,    148,    167, 

173;    value   of   method   of,    167    f . ; 

conspectus  of  scheme  of,  157. 
Schafer,  W.  A.,   282. 
Schiller,  J.  C.  F.,  462,  465- 
Schopenhauer,  A.,  673. 
Schmoller,  G.,   19,  97- 
Science :     practical,   ultimate   problem 

of,  663  ;    pure,  ultimate  problem  of, 

663. 


Security,  606  ff. ;  the  universal  inter- 
est, 253. 

Selbstgefiihl,  459. 

Sex-interest,    189. 

Simmel,  G.,  94,  229,  291,  361,  491, 
498,    503. 

Simons,    S.    E.,    255,   402. 

Situations,    social,    500.  ( 

Small,   A.   W.,    23,    35,    75,    102,    157,       X 
313,    354,    403,   486,    492,    524.    552, 
586. 

Smith,  A.,  224,  692. 

Smith,  T.  C,  282,  283. 

Sociability-interest,     198,    457,    458. 

Sociability,    relative,   244. 

Social  organism,   75,   115,   116. 

Social   psychology   as   true   ethnology, 

57- 

Social,  the,  458,  510  ff. 

Social  type,  supposable,    127. 

Sociality,  628, 

Socialization,  191,  192,  195,  342,  363, 
389,  390,  499,  590  ff. ;  as  end  of 
struggle,  335  ;  by  external  pres- 
sure, 366 ;  by  popular  interests, 
366 ;  defined,  592 ;  morality  of, 
334 ;  tendency  of,  336,  337 ;  vs. 
struggle,  327. 

Socializing    process,    325. 

Society :  concept  of,  405  ;  conditions 
of,  404;  defined,  115;  elements  of, 
404  ;    vagueness  of  term,   183. 

"Society"  vs.  association,  184,  185, 
504-  508. 

Sociological   point   of  view,    549   ff. 

Sociologists :  implicit  consensus 
among,  4,  177  ;    task  of,  303. 

Sociology :  analogy  with  biology,  7, 
43  ;  analogy  with  chemistry,  6 ; 
analogy  with  physics,  5  ;  and  biol- 
ogy, 7,  43,  67,  92  ;  and  classifica- 
tion, 65,  73  ;  and  ethics,  663  ;  and 
history,  13  ff.,  46 ;  and  nature 
peoples,  100,  loi  ;  and  philosophy 
of  history,  44  ff.,  62,  63  ;  as  alterna- 
tive with  provincial  sciences,  8,  9  ; 
as  highest  generalization  of  social 
facts,  29 ;  as  historiology,  16 ;  as 
point  of  view,  9  ;  "  biological,"  75, 
76,  77,  78,  79  ;  confusing  develop- 
ment of,  43  ;  constructive  purpose 
of,  38,  39  ;  contrasted  with  certain 
types  of  ethnology,  12  ;  contrasted 
with  economics,  18;  "data"  of 
(Spencer),  99;  defined,  3,  23  ff. ; 
described,  7,  8,  22,  52,  93,  100,  177- 
79,  186,  198,  442,  557,  558;  de- 
scriptive, 69,   in;    desideratum  of. 


738 


GENERAL  SOCIOLOGY 


469  ;  "  dualistic,"  80,  81  ;  dynamic, 
86;  empirical,  129;  general  prob- 
lem of,  711  ;  goal  of,  130,  712,  713  ; 
history  of,  40  ff.  ;  impulse  of,  36 
ff. ;  latest  word  of,  282  ;  not  "  so- 
ciologies," 63  ;  of  the  individual, 
163;  pedagogical  end  of,  568; 
positive  results  of,  200 ;  practical 
premises  of,  705  ;  practical  worth 
of,  28;  problems  of,  98  ff.,  105, 
183,  304,  367,  505,  664,  665,  711; 
proper  influence  of,  311;  subject- 
matter  of,  3  ;  task  of,  586  ;  vs.  psy- 
chology,  447,   488,    535.   624,   645. 

Sociologists,  division  of  labor  among, 
25   ff. 

Solidarity,  582. 

Sombart,  W.,   20,  621. 

Spencer,    B.,    210. 

Spencer,  H.,  37,  70,  72,  75,  76,  77,  82, 
84.  87,  93,  97,  98,  loi,  104,  109-53, 
200,  212,  213,  233,  403,  414,  416, 
422,  423,  468,  491,  526,  527,  529, 
567,  603,  607,  613,  619,  656,  669, 
687,  688,  698,  705  ;  contrasted  with 
Schaffle,  148,   167,  173. 

Spencer's  method,  decreasing  ratio  of 
importance,  153  ;  essential  idea  of, 
153;    value  of.  III   ff.,  130  ff. 

St.  Simon,  C.  H.,  36. 

Stages,  social:  criteria  of,  217,  221; 
formula  of,  218  ;  Morgan's  scheme 
of,  215  ;  Ratzenhofer's  scheme  of, 
216,  219  ;    series  of,  325,  328. 

Standards,   moral,    confusion   of,    653. 

State :  a  perpetual  becoming,  240 ; 
absolute  vs.  constitutionalj  297  ; 
analogy  with  orchestra,  239 ;  and 
special  interests,  270  ;  as  epitome 
of  the  social  process,  226 ;  con- 
flicts of  interest  in,  281  ff.  ;  cri- 
terion of  strength  in,  292  ;  defined, 
226,  244,  292  ;  described,  252,  253  ; 
elementary  interest  of,  245  ;  indi- 
viduality of,  249  ;  interests  in 
[(Ratzenhofer's  schedule),  252;  in- 
tolerance of,  244,  247,  249,  251  ; 
latent  antagonisms  in,  242  ff. ; 
meaning  of,  239,  240  ;  not  merely 
political,  226;  origin  of,  191,  250; 
represents  types  of  civic  constraint, 
242  ff. ;  role  of,  242,  250,  347  ; 
SchJiffle's  analysis  of.  166  ;  social 
process  in,  224,  f. ;  test  of  its  nor- 
mality, 280  ;  tripartite  organization 
of,  306  ;  two  primary  elements  in, 
229. 

States,  antagonistic  interests  in,  265  ff. 
Statical    (jucstion    in    sociology,    94. 


Status  as  condition  of  welfare,  607. 

Stead,  W.  T.,  232. 

Stein,  L.,  434,  707. 

Steinmetz,  S.  R.,  44,  65,  215,  412. 

Stephen,    L.,    430. 

Stereotyping  process,  social,  230  ff., 
237,   241. 

Structure,  social,  iii,  112,  117,  131, 
144,  159,  167-69,  172,  176,  211,  524; 
as  means,  214;  relation  to  struc- 
ture, 531. 

Structure,  value  of  concept,  132,   176. 

Structures,  multiple  functions  of,  151. 

Struggle :  by-products  of,  359  ;  civic, 
main  tendency  of,  332  ;  implicit  in 
modern  States,  300,  301  ;  social, 
190,  193  ;  vs.  moralization  and  so- 
cialization,  327, 

Stubbs,  W.,    14,    16. 

Subjective   interpretation,   88,   89. 

Subjective   life    (social),    165. 

Success,    tactical    results   of,   317. 

Suggestion  z's.  imitation,  630. 

Sustaining   system,    120,    151. 

Systems,  political,  Ratzenhofer's  def- 
inition  of,   287,   288. 

Taboo,   701. 

Tactical  results  of  success  or  failure, 

317- 
Tactics,  political,  316. 
Tarde,  G.,   17,  43.  44,  59,  80,  92,   183, 

228,    312,   329,    430,    512,    546,    566, 

626,    627,    628,    631,    643  ;     theorem 

of,  substitute  for,  632-36. 
Taylor,   G.,   420. 

Technology,   social,   described,    34. 
Teleological  question  in  sociology,  95. 
Telicism,   669. 
Tennyson,  A.,  512. 
Terrorism  as  campaign  device,  315. 
Tcrtius  gaudcns,  229. 
Thomas,    W.    J.,    211,    470,    484,    619, 

642. 
Thucydides,    53. 
Time-element  in  struggle,   315. 
Tocfjueville,  A.  C.  H.  de,  214,  410. 
Tonnies,    F.,    77,   402,    524. 
Topinard,    P.,    56. 

Tribal  conditions  described,   209-11 
Turner,  F.  J.,  282,  283. 
Tylor,   E.   B.,   56. 
Type,  mobility  of,  612. 
Types,   social,    124;    changes   of,   4^2. 

Unity:  of  association,  103,  133,  137, 
158,  185  ;  social,  psychic  nature  of, 
141. 

Universal   interest,   253. 

Universals,   assumption  of,   87. 


INDEX 


739 


Valuations  :  categorical  and  telic  con- 
trasted in  re  temperance,  697  fF. ; 
clue  to  sociological  explanation, 
641  ;  sociological  prerequisites  for, 
690  ;  ethical/  working  tests  of,  686  ; 
social,    i6s,  r349- 

Veblen,  T.,  277,  451. 

Vicariousness^   592   ff. 

Vicious  circle  in  social  valuation,  350. 

Vincent,  G.  E.,  40,  75,  157,  486,  492, 
524.  586. 

Von  Hoist,  H.,  574. 

Wagner,  A.,  61,  73. 
Wallis,   L.,   403. 

Want  vs.  "  interest  "  and  "  desire," 
436,  445- 


Ward,  L.  F.,  23,  37,  40,  60,  75,  80,  82, 
84,  8s,  86,  87,  125,  129,  3",  354, 
381,  399-403.  413.  416,  474,  512, 
524,  532,  534,  636,  544,  607,  608, 
613,  623,  646,   717. 

Warramunga,  210. 

Wealth-interest,    198,   450. 

Weismann,   414. 

Welfare,  social,  vs.  individual,   142. 

Woods,  F.  A.,  563. 

Work-interests,    197. 

World-population  as  social  body,   166. 

Wundt,  W.,  620. 

Zeitgeist,  as  political  factor,  309 ; 
function  of,  373. 


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